Hattie's Daughter
by NevadaRose
Summary: This is a Kincaid story. You need to have read "A Fine and Private Place" to understand where this starts. I began writing it a year ago just before Lady of Dodge died. She was reading and commenting on it for me, and after her passing I just could not bring myself to touch it. I may be slow, but I will finish. Please give me your patience. I hope you'll like it.
1. Chapter 1

For Lady of Dodge, and - as originally intended - for BigMommaT

Kitty Russell was mad. She was downright furious and she badly wanted a drink of whiskey. Mrs. Dillon smiled at Tony Rider and told him to come on into the kitchen. Since he'd come to the back door, that wasn't far.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the Marshal, Mr. Dillon that is, told me to come on to the home place and get this wrapped up. And to tell you he won't be back 'til dark."

"Oh, I do understand, Tony. Believe me I do. Now you hold your hand under the tap here at the sink and let me be sure those cuts are clean before we put a bandage on it. How'd you do this?"

"Bob wire.," The answer came out through gritted teeth as the water gushed out over the young man's fingers.

"New or old?" Kitty asked.

"Brand new. It got me as I was winding it off the roll." He hissed as Kitty's gentle fingers prodded his wounds.

She smiled up at him. "Well, that's good, cowboy. New wire's not likely to carry lockjaw the way old rusty wire might. You'll have a few scars, but this will heal just fine." She pulled rolled bandages from a shelf next to the sink and began wrapping the injured hand. Tony blanched at even the word "lockjaw".

"Don't you have gloves?" Now a blush rose slowly to his face. "Yes, ma'am. I took them off to unhook that first bit of wire and forgot to put them back on."

"Bet you don't do that again." Kitty tied off the end of the bandage, and laid a firm hand on the man's shoulder when he started to rise. "You just sit there, Tony, and I'll get you some lunch. My husband won't be here to eat it and it won't keep.

Thirty minutes later, full of beef stew and apple pie, Tony left for the bunk house. Once he was out past the back gate, Kitty walked through to the living room and out to the front porch, allowing the screen door to slam behind her.

 _And why did I ever think it would be different,_ she asked herself? Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them away with the back of a fist. Fine thing it was for her to be crying – with a new husband, a grand new home, and all she ever wanted in life staring her in the face. But all she'd ever really wanted was Matt. Wanted him to give up that damned badge and be with her. She sighed. Marriage was nice. She hadn't insisted on it, but she liked it. She liked the house and the ranch, too. And having Matt in her bed every night, she definitely liked that. She sat down in the rocker and clasped her hands on the wooden arms. _Why had she thought that changing the things around them would change Matt? That was foolishness, it was._

Matt was a man who put his whole being into whatever he was doing. And right now that was running a cattle ranch. She actually saw _less_ of him than she had last summer when she was managing the Long Branch and he was Marshal of Dodge City. Every night yes - and the nights were more than fine – but the days… the long, quiet days with nothing at all happening, no one to talk to, and not a thing to do but cleaning things that were already clean and cooking for a man who didn't even show up to eat.

Kitty's head came up sharply at the clop of hooves and the squeak of wheels turning under the big front gateposts. Doc Adams pulled up his horse at the front porch and gave her a sideways look. "You got anything to feed a man that's been up since midnight?"

Kitty was down the steps and hugging him as he stepped down from the buggy. "You just bet I do, Doc. Food's on the stove and your bed is all made up."

Doc allowed the embrace, even adding a kiss on her cheek, but his voice was sharp when he asked, "Everything alright, Kitty? That overgrown hunk you married been treating you right?"

"Everything's fine, Doc. Everything's just fine now. I've just been missing you, that's what it is."

Pretending, as he had off and on for years, not to see the tracks of tears on her face, the old man tucked Kitty's hand into his arm and covered it with his own. "I'm starving where I stand, honey. Let's eat."


	2. Chapter 2

Doc ate heartily all that was left of the beef stew and mopped his plate with the bread she cut for him. He sat at the kitchen table wielding a toothpick with gusto and discussing the baby he'd delivered a few hours after dawn while Kitty washed up the dishes. When she finally poured coffee for them both and joined him at the table Doc looked out at her through hooded eyes and made it a statement instead of a question. "You may as well tell me, Kitty."

Kitty paid close attention to stirring her coffee, but took her time in answering. When she did she addressed the unwinking eye of her cup rather than her friend. "I'm not used to being alone all day, Doc."

"That's a start," he commented when nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. "Let's have the rest."

"It's not… well, it's not like I thought it was going to be, Doc." She looked up then, "And I need to find some way to fix that."

"Fix what, exactly?"

"Make a place for myself here. Find something to do. Be a part of this whole thing. A part of Kincaid. More than just keeping house and being bored while Matt does all the work."

"And has all the fun?" he asked impertinently.

Her eyes flew to his and then suddenly hardened. Her chin lifted as she gave him a sharp nod. "I thought we were going to be partners, Doc. I didn't see him being away from dawn until dusk, and me bein' the only person alive on the whole ranch. I don't know how Rose stood it all those years."

"She didn't."

That startled Kitty, but after a bit of thought she agreed, "Well, I suppose she didn't. She had the boys in those early years, and then Elizabeth, and she always had Till."

Doc harrumphed. "In the early years, when she and Jake first settled here, she worked the land right along side him and the boys. Jake roped cattle and she branded them – and gelded them too. I've seen her do it. One little flick of the knife. I've heard that Till cooked over an open fire and they all slept in tents until they got the house built. But that wasn't what I was talkin' about, honey. I can't see you out on the range working cattle, can you?"

Kitty shook her head, determined but not regretful.

"Last twenty years, Rose ran everything on this ranch that didn't involve breeding cattle and horses. She kept the books, paid the men, decided what to plant and when, how much stock to sell or buy. She was the brains behind the success of this ranch, Kitty. I suppose I always thought you'd do the same."

Kitty had caught her breath when he mentioned paying the men. She barely waited for him to finish before she said, "It's almost the end of the month. Someone needs to go in and get cash for the payroll on Saturday. Doc, could I drive back with you tomorrow morning? Matt can send one of the hands in to pick me up. I'll stay over at Ma Smalley's."

"We could leave right now if you like."

Kitty shook her head just a little regretfully. "That's not how Matt and I do things, Doc. I may be feelin' down a bit, but it's not Matt's fault. And even if I were mad at him, I still need to make supper and _you_ ," she carefully emphasized the word, "need to get some rest. Go on up and have yourself a nap while I pull things together."

About dusk, Matt Dillon stepped through the back door into a kitchen fragrant with the smell of roasting chicken and baking biscuits. He grinned at the small, grey-haired man sipping coffee at the kitchen table and stripped off his gloves to offer Doc a hand before laying an arm around Kitty's waist and dropping a kiss in her hair.

Doc noticed the gesture with pleasure. It still took him by surprise. Fifteen years of their judiciously casual public friendship had left him with expectations he didn't much like, but still accepted as normal.

Kitty had them seated at the table with Matt sopping up the last of the chicken gravy with his biscuit before she brought up the subject of her trip into town. "You remember what day it is, Matt?" she asked.

"Seems to me it was Wednesday last time I looked."

"You got plans for tomorrow?"

"Need to finish that south fence line, Kitty. It's almost November and…" Matt slapped a hand on the table. "You're trying to tell me it's almost payday aren't you?"

Kitty nodded and started transferring plates from the table to the sink. Doc pulled a toothpick from his pocket and settled back in his seat to watch the show.

Matt stood and took a turn around the kitchen. He stopped behind Kitty and rested his thumbs in his belt. "I know you want me to take you into town for the payroll. I suppose I can let Bat take care of that last stretch of fence, Kitty, but I was countin' on doin' it myself. I'm trying to learn the boundary lines for the ranch before winter comes in."

She kept on washing the dishes, but her face cleared a little. "Is that what it is? Wish you'd told me that, Matt. Might have made it easier if I understood."

Matt ran a hand through his hair and sneaked a look at Doc's passive face. "I never said?"

Kitty shook her head.

Matt walked over to the corner cupboard and got out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses. He set them on the table and then spun Kitty around and sat her down. She wiped her hands on her apron and waited poker-faced while Matt poured them each a drink.

"You were maybe going to remind me of it someday soon?" Matt asked sipping his rye.

But that broke Kitty down and she laughed. "I didn't think of it myself until Doc came in this afternoon and we got to talkin'. Matt, I used to pay my girls and the barmen on Monday mornings so an end of the month payday wasn't something I was used to think about. You want me to go in and pick up the payroll for you tomorrow? Pretty sure Doc would drive me into town." She looked up at Doc and slowly lowered an eyelid on the side away from her husband.

"Suppose I could do that if you wanted, Kitty," responded the worthy doctor. "I'll be leavin' mighty early though," he warned severely.

Matt stared at the two of them for a second or two and then nodded. "No harm you driving in with Doc, but I'll send one of the boys for you tomorrow afternoon. That's too much cash for you to be carrying back on your own."

Kitty reached over to pat his hand. "You send Cookie in on Friday noontime. He'll be needing supplies. I'll spend the night in town and catch up on what's going on in the world." She winked boldly at him this time. "I might do some shopping too."

An evening of light conversation brought Matt up to date on the doings in the only part of the world he cared much about, and the three of them walked up to bed a little before ten. Matt lay back on a pillow in the big bed watching Kitty brush her hair. Doc's voice raised in song from across the hall – along with a fair amount of splashing – let them know he was taking advantage of the superior plumbing the ranch house offered.

"You mad at me, Kitty?" he finally asked.

She dropped her robe at the foot of the bed and blew out the lamp before sitting down next to him. "No I'm not, Matt. I just think there's some things we both have to get used to here that maybe we never thought about. Like who's going to do the books, and keep the records, and make up the payroll. And like you tellin' me _why_ you're doin' the things you do out on the ranch."

He had her in his arms now, and she felt him nod acknowledgement, but his next words weren't about the ranch. "I know you're lonely out here, Kitty. Days must be mighty long when we're all out. You want to spend some time visiting in Dodge? I can send Bat for the payroll."

She did want to. "Not on your life, Matt Dillon. I'll have a nice quick trip and spend the night at Ma Smalley's - or up at Doc's if he doesn't have a patient - and be back in time to cook dinner on Friday night. I'll just take the opportunity to pick up a few things to help me pass the time when you're out."

"You going to take up tatting, Kitty?" he asked spreading her small hands inside his big ones.

"That's not exactly what I had in mind." She pulled her hands free and put them to use where she thought they'd do the most good. That about ended their conversation for some time.

Later, his arm lying warmly across Kitty's waist and her head tucked into his shoulder, Matt said, "You do know, dontcha, that you and Doc didn't fool me a bit?"

She snuggled closer into his arms. "Yes, Matt. I do know that. But it was nice of you to pretend."

"I'm not exactly happy about you heading out without me, Kitty."

"I know that too, partner."

Matt sighed and before long they were asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Doc woke with the first grey of morning lighting his window, and the mingled smell of bacon and coffee twitching at his nose. He rose and shaved – thinking how easy it would be to get used to both hot water and a water closet just down the hall – and joined Matt and Kitty in the kitchen where Matt was putting away a hefty meal of eggs, bacon, bread, and coffee.

"You save any of that for me, you overgrown…" but before he could think of the right word, Kitty sat him down and put a similarly loaded plate in front of him. She took a chair next to Matt and sipped coffee from a painted china cup. Breakfast conversation didn't seem to be too lively.

Matt rose about the time a bright pink glow lighted the kitchen windows. If Doc expected to observe an amorous goodbye, he was mistaken – or more likely it had occurred while he was still sleeping peacefully in the small bedroom at the end of the hall that the Dillons had set aside as 'his'. Matt buckled on the gunbelt hanging by the back door and took his hat from the rack beside it. He laid a hand lightly on his wife's forearm and then with a familiar "See ya' later, Kitty," he settled the hat on his head and went out the back door.

Kitty rose to get the coffee pot off the stove, and to sneak a last glance out the kitchen window at the tall figure heading for the barn. She poured her own cup and offered Doc a refill that he gladly accepted. "You 'bout ready to go, Kitty?" he asked. "Want me to go hitch up the buggy?"

But Kitty laughed at that. "Matt will have one of the boys bring it out front in a bit, Doc. No need to trouble yourself."

"He tell you that, did he?"

Kitty shook her head and nibbled a leftover piece of bacon off Doc's plate. "Nope. But he will." She stood up gracefully, pressing a hand on Doc's shoulder to keep him from rising. "I've got a couple of things left to put in my bag. You just finish your coffee in peace. I'll be down in a few minutes and we can leave as soon as I finish with the dishes." He watched her heading out the kitchen door to the stairs.

It didn't take her long to get ready and the dishes, with Doc drying, took even less time. The buggy – as Kitty had foretold – was waiting when they stepped onto the front porch. Doc stored his medical bag under the seat and placed his own small carpet bag and Kitty's slightly larger one behind. He helped her up and they headed off down the road to Dodge.

The late autumn morning was clear and fresh, and they rode a few minutes in silence. But Doc knew it would only take about an hour for them to reach Dodge and it didn't take him long to come back to the subject that interested him. "You were up might early this morning," he commented.

Kitty shrugged. "I don't run a saloon anymore, Doc. And Matt doesn't have to stay up to make late rounds. We go to bed just about the time things would start getting lively at the Long Branch."

"What do you do of an evening?"

"Oh, we make dinner last a while. Matt will tell me what he and the boys did during the day. I'll finish cleaning up, and he spends some time going through the stud books in Jake's office." She smiled softly to herself. Evenings were the best time. They didn't actually _do_ much, but Matt was there with her, no one else had a claim on either of their time, and they'd made their own routines. It wasn't usually long after dark – and dark was coming early these days – when Matt would stand up and go to the big front door. She kept a heavy shawl on a hook behind the door, and he would pluck it down and wrap it around her. They'd stand on the porch looking west towards the road for a bit. She'd stand just in front of him and those big arms would encircle her, warmer than the shawl, and then…

Doc's voice interrupted her pleasant reverie. "Jake's office?"

"That little room off the kitchen. You know, between Till's room and the living room."

"That was Rose's office. I suppose Jake kept his stud books there, but Rose did all the paperwork for the spread. Kept the books. Paid the bills. Paid the men. Didn't you know that?"

Her head was turned, looking at him curiously. "No. I didn't."

"Well, she did. All her household books were there. She kept a page for every month, sometimes two or three, for all the years they lived there. Rose told me she showed them to you."

"She did," Kitty agreed. "But they were in the kitchen, not the office. I figured they were, oh, recipes and things."

Doc snorted and his mare took this as a sign to move into a trot. She knew they were moving towards home. "Well, you just take a look at them when you get back, Kitty, and see what you find."

Kitty thought about her own ledgers from the Long Branch. They certainly contained more than just accounts from whiskey drummers and bills for new glassware. It was such a long time ago! She'd taken over the bookkeeping from Bill Pence pretty early in her tenure there - years before she actually bought in to the saloon. Bill couldn't add a row of figures to save his life, and forgot to make half the entries anyway. It wasn't that he had done so much better when Kitty took over the books, it was that he had, for the first time, known how well he was doing. And she could show him, month by month, how to make improvements.

Once the books were her own, well, she recorded the daily business, and the bills, and when they were paid, and her deposits at the bank. She frowned at the thought of the occasional loan she'd had to take out when business was bad. Careful notes of interest paid, and broad, sweeping lines of text that showed her pleasure when she paid off Banker Bodkin. But there were also little things in those books no one else would understand – a tiny check mark in the top right corner of some pages that marked when her monthly bleeding began and, later, the more and more common small 'x' in the same location that showed something else. There were comments mixed among the deliveries and appointments. "Marshal left for Hays." "Matt back from Mexico." "Gunfight. Two men killed. Marshal Dillon took a bullet to the leg." She had left those ledgers for Annie and Sam. Would they notice? Would Annie even look? Kitty set herself a firm intention to make a more than casual inspection of that row of Rose's ledgers holding down her own kitchen shelf.

They were quiet for a bit. The air was brisk, but not really cold. There hadn't been any snow yet, although the ground was frosted over some mornings. Doc was persistent. "You have any plans for the work at Kincaid?"

Kitty was regarding her hands with great interest. After a while she managed, "I think Matt needs to do that, Doc. It's not that I'm not interested, it's just, well, he's a little sensitive about it."

"We talkin' about Matt Dillon? Or you have some other fella tucked away up there at the house?"

"This is really none of your business, Doc."

His reply was very calm. "Anything that leaves my girl with tears on her face middle of a weekday afternoon is my business. No matter where she is or who she's married to."

Kitty didn't answer at first, but she did tuck a hand through his arm. A ways down the road, she asked lightly, "You remember when Matt first came to Dodge, Doc?"

"Yes, I do. We'd lost two marshals and a sheriff in less than a year. I didn't see much hope for him making a go of it."

"You give him a lot of advice about what to do?"

That brought a kind of choked chortle. "I did not. Wasn't my business. Not that everybody else in town didn't. He listened, too. At least he stood quiet while folks talked at him. He walked around a lot. Threw a dozen men out of town. Shot half a dozen others. Took those big fists of his to gents who had a right to be there but didn't behave the way they should. I took out a bullet or two. Sewed up some places a gun creased him. Took out a tooth some thug knocked loose." Doc sighed, "And after about six months, I took my pistol off my desk and locked in up in a drawer. Stopped keepin' my shotgun next to the door. He an' I began playin' checkers now and then."

Kitty tightened her grip a little on his arm. "That's what he's doing now, Doc. Walkin' around a lot. Getting' a feel for the lay of things. Gettin' to know his men and his land. I have to let him do that."

They could see the line of Dodge on the horizon now. The mare wanted to speed up but Doc held her to a slow walk. "It's your land, too, Kitty. You told me yesterday you wanted to try to fix things. It's still early days but I think you need to start as you mean to go on. Always harder to change things after you've fallen into a habit. Start thinkin' about what you can do to help manage the ranch. Find Rose's books. Start payin' the bills and ordering the supplies. You know how to do that, dontcha?"

"Well, I always figured I did. I certainly did it for the Long Branch. But the ranch is so different. Needs different things…"

Doc reached over and patted her hand. "Nothin' you can't learn, Kitty. Nothin' you can't learn. And if you ask Matt questions, well, mebbe they'll be things he knows and he'll enjoy telling you. And if he doesn't know, then it's probably something he needs to find out."

Dodge was growing. They could see the low rise of Boot Hill behind it. "You get up and cook for Matt every morning like you did today?"

"Yes. You think that's important?"

Doc couldn't help rolling his eyes. "Kitty, where's Matt been eating the majority of his meals the last fifteen years?"

That surprised her. "I suppose that when he's not out on the trail he's been eating mostly at Delmonico's." She thought about that. "Not the best food in the world."

"Marginally edible would be my opinion."

"You're not a bad cook, Kitty. I don't doubt that means a lot to Matt – would to any man. You could invite the boys in for supper now and then. One or two at a time. Let them see what home cooking is like."

"I never expected to have to work at keeping Matt satisfied by cooking for him, Doc," she replied drily.

"Guess he's pretty satisfied with his meals." Doc threw her a sly glance, "And with a few other things."

Kitty smiled. "Yes, I suppose he is." But then she sat quiet for a few minutes while the mare trotted them willingly through the outskirts of Dodge. "I think maybe that's the real problem, Doc. Matt is pretty satisfied with everything. And I'm not."


	4. Chapter 4

Doc dropped Kitty at Ma Smalley's boarding house, and drove on to the livery. Kitty found Ma in the kitchen washing up from her boarders' breakfast and happy to give her a room for the night. Leaving her bag in the room, Kitty took her reticule and started for Front Street. Bank wouldn't be open yet, but most of the stores would. After a month on the ranch, the quiet town looked crowded and bustling.

Kitty waited her turn at the general store, looking around as she did so, and was just handing her list to the clerk when Wilbur Jonas came out of the back room. "Morning, Mrs. Dillon," he said, twitching the list from the clerk's hands and running his eyes down it. "You want this right away?"

"No, not until tomorrow actually. Our cook will be coming in about noon, and he'll have a longer list for you – and we will want that one as soon as you can put it together. Just thought I would leave this with you now."

"It's going to take some time to put up your cook's list tomorrow, Mrs. Dillon. Friday's a busy day. Wish you'd brought that in with you today."

 _And why didn't I?_ Kitty thought to herself. _Because I just didn't think, that's why. Didn't plan anything. Just hopped in Doc's buggy and headed off from the ranch._ But she smiled warmly at Jonas. "I'm sure you'll manage just fine." She wasn't about to admit that she'd made an error, and she certainly wasn't going to let a storekeeper chastise her. Kitty glanced up at the railroad clock hanging over the counter and figured the bank would be open. She was outside the bank door before she stopped and caught herself . She'd come in for the payroll money, but did she really want to carry that amount of cash around with her for the rest of the day? She needed to stop and do a little thinking before she made another move. It was just at that moment that the bank door opened and Banker Bodkin escorted Polly Mason out of it.

"I'm sorry I can't help you, Mrs. Mason," he was saying, "But that's just not a risk the bank can take." He saw her and tipped his hat. "Did you need to see me, Mrs. Dillon?" Whatever attention he had being paying Polly was gone. She could have been a fly on the wall for all the notice he paid her. Kitty remembered that attitude very well.

"Not at all, Mr. Bodkin. Banking can wait. Mrs. Mason is just the woman I want to see!" She took Polly's arm and began a stroll down the boardwalk away from the bank. She didn't turn around to see what effect this had on the banker, and wouldn't let Polly turn either. "He's just a big bully, Polly," she whispered, "Don't let him see you care."

Polly, a small neatly-dressed woman of middle years, straightened her spine and kept her face forward. "It's nice to see you, Kitty. Yes, he is a bully. And he enjoys it." She tilted up her chin. "Especially with women."

"You want to talk about it, Polly? Or you want me to just mind my own business," Kitty asked.

The woman beside her sighed. "I don't mind talking, Kitty. At least not to you. You used to run a business here in Dodge, and you know what it's like. Come on down to my shop and we'll have a cup of tea."

Thinking to herself that a good glass of whiskey might be a better restorative, Kitty squeezed Polly's arm and they proceeded down the block beyond the hardware store to the small storefront with a sign above the door that said "Dressmaking". A bell tinkled as they went in and two young women who sat sewing in the light from the window both looked up expectantly. Polly shook her head briefly at them and led Kitty back into the kitchen behind the shop.

Polly took off her hat, smoothed the ruffled feather, and set it on a shelf. "Have a seat, Kitty. I'll have this brewed up in no time." Kitty sat at the table and watched as Polly, her lips still tight, moved a kettle onto the stove, took down a china tea pot and cups, and reached into a cupboard for a canister of tea. She boiled over just about the time the kettle did. "It just makes me so mad, Kitty! If I were a man – or even had a husband around – he would have made me that loan at a reasonable rate in a minute flat! But no, he can't trust a woman to handle business matters." She set the teapot just a little more firmly than necessary on the table, and turned back to get cups, sugar, and spoons. Her voice was stern but calm when she sat down across from Kitty and looked her in the eye. "Do you know what that man wanted to charge me? Twelve percent. Twelve percent! That's usury, it is. It says so in the Bible. And I told him that. Which is when he headed me towards the door and decided he couldn't make the loan at any price." She filled both cups and then looked back up, "I shouldn't have said that, should I?"

Kitty shook her head. "No. Likely not. But I do know just how you feel." She sipped her tea. Coffee would have been more to her taste. "Tell me what's happening, Polly. Business bad?"

"No. Just the opposite. The town is growing and I have more business than ever. That's why I've taken on the two girls."

"One of them seems to be growing as well." Kitty commented. Her ready eye had observed that even in passing.

Polly's chin tilted up just a little more. "Actually, both of them are. Lucy worked down at the Texas Trail for a while, but they let her go when the baby began to show. She's a good seamstress, though. Has patience for all the fiddling details – she'll spend all afternoon sewing sequins on a dress one by one. Susan is March Pitcher's daughter. He tossed her out of the house when she told him she was expecting. Told him it wasn't her fault, but he didn't listen. She walked in to town, and Ma Smalley took her in for a night or two and fed her, but didn't really have any work for her. Susan sews a straight seam, but she doesn't know much beyond that. I'm teaching her, though."

"So you've got lots of business, and two employees. What did you want a loan for?"

"Dress goods," Polly replied. "I did the figures, and I could almost double my income if I kept a nice selection of fabric here in the store. As it is, the ladies tell me what they want, and I tell them how many yards they need, and then they have to go down to one of the dry goods stores and pick out their cloth. Did you know there's a forty percent markup on bolts of cloth, Kitty? Mr. Jonas or Mr. Geislinger make more profit on a dress than I do! But you have to order the cloth in quantity – not one or two bolts at a time, but dozens at a time. And the more you order, the cheaper the cost. I had all the numbers ready to show the banker but he wouldn't even look. Said he would loan me $250 at twelve percent but I'd have to give him a mortgage on my shop as security."

Kitty took all that in. She didn't know anything about dressmaking, but she did know about interest. "Seems to me that you could afford that twelve percent – no, now don't start in on me! – seems like you could afford that if you turned around your inventory within a year."

"I probably could. And I might have accepted it, but it's hard, Kitty. I know that Milt Storner next door at the hardware got a similar loan for six percent just last month. He was complaining to me about how high _that_ rate was is how I know. And I figured that at six percent I could make a good profit. But twelve! And just because I'm a woman! I let those words about the Bible out my mouth in anger, and now I'm going to suffer for it. That's all there is to it."

Both ladies drank their tea. Polly asked after Matt and the ranch. Kitty asked what various women would be wearing to the Harvest Social the next week. Finally she put her cup down, and went straight to the point. "Polly, would you let me see your figures on the money you want to borrow?"

"I don't mind you seeing them, Kitty. I think I figured it out right on the penny. A lot of what I do in dressmaking is numbers, and I'm good at it. But I won't take charity from you."

"I wouldn't offer it, Polly. But let me have those papers to look over. I'll come back in tomorrow morning and we can talk. Would you accept a loan at 6% if I like what I see?"

"You're not a banker, Kitty. And what would Matt say? That would be money taken from the ranch!"

"Polly, I was a saloon owner for years before I became a rancher. And I've got money in my own account at Bodkin's Bank that's only earning two percent interest. I'm not promising anything, but let me have the papers. Maybe we can do business. Women's business."

With the dressmaker's sheets of paper rolled tightly inside her reticule, Kitty strolled slowly down the street. Now that she was back in Dodge, it didn't seem like there was anything much she wanted to do. She'd go over to the Long Branch in a bit. Having a chat with Sam and Annie would be pleasant, but she was beginning to realize that what she had been looking for when she took off from Kincaid wasn't really seeing her friends, or shopping in the store. What she had been seeking was what Dodge used to mean to her – business, things to do, people who counted on her. And she wasn't going to find that in Dodge City any more than she had at Kincaid. The night in town that had seemed like a somewhat guilty pleasure out at the ranch now seemed a bit flat. She wished quite suddenly that she'd asked Matt to send one of the hands in for her today instead of tomorrow. And that she'd gotten a list of supplies from Cookie. And maybe a list from Matt as well… She was brooding herself into a decline when two big hands on her waist lifted her up and twirled her around.

"Kitty Russell!" Frank Reardon exclaimed. "Now that's just who I wanted to see walking down Front Street on a Thursday morning."

She smiled and accepted Frank's enthusiastic kiss. What would the town have thought if Matt had greeted her like that during all those cautious years? What would they think of Frank now? But that just widened her smile as she tucked her hand in her friend's arm. "Is it too early for a drink, Marshal? How about you walk me over to the Long Branch?"

"Not on your life, darlin'. You come on over to the office with me and tell me all about how you and Matt are doing. Annie and Sam can have their turn a little later."

The Marshal's office looked much the same. When she thought back on it, Frank's office in Hays when he was sheriff there hadn't been much different either. Although he asked her questions, and even let her answer them, Frank was full of his own news. He'd been Marshal nearly a month now, and was getting to know the locals as well as the larger and the closer-in ranchers – but it would take him years to gain Matt's perspective on the town. "Not much that Festus doesn't know about the Front Street crowd, and he'll tell me if I ask him, but then I have to sift through his stories to see what's what. Doc's a better source, but he can get kind of close-mouthed about things sometimes."

"Like about Susan Pitcher?"

"So you've heard that already, have you? I rode out and had a word with March but it didn't do no good. At least he let me pack up her things and bring them to her. He turfed her out with just the clothes on her back. I tried to get Susan to tell me what happened, but she wouldn't. Likely Doc knows, but he's not talkin'. And if she won't make a complaint…"

Frank shrugged his shoulders and turned back to his previous topic. "Now your Sam is grand one for information. Guess everyone talks to a barkeep. I think he knows every cowpoke that ever stopped into Dodge for a drink, but damn it all, honey, sometimes I just wish I could sit down and have a whole evening with Matt. You think he'll be comin' into town soon?" Frank's brows wrinkled and he looked at her in sudden concern. "What're you doing here by yourself, Kitty? Something wrong?"

She patted his hand where it lay on the table. "Not a thing, Frank. Matt is busy trying to get fencing up on the south line before the first snow. I just came in to pick up the payroll for Saturday, and to visit with folks."

Frank turned his hand to capture hers and held it firmly. "That straight, Kitty?"

She looked him in the eye. "Yes it is. I won't say I'm not lonely out at Kincaid. I've been used to having more to do, but there's nothing wrong." She squeezed his hand. "You just come on out one day next week and have that visit with Matt. It's not so far, and the town should be quiet enough this season to get along without you for half a day."

He looked a little embarrassed at that. "Well, it's not that Kitty. It's, well, it's just that…"

The jailhouse door burst wide and Annie Dillon stood there, hands on her hips. "It's just that folks all felt you and Matt deserved some time alone. I tried to tell Frank you wouldn't mind a little company, but I couldn't get him to drive me out." She flung herself into Kitty's arms with her characteristic flair and kissed her warmly. "I thought I'd explode when I saw you walking down here to the Marshal's office, and I waited as long as I could, but you just have to come on back with me I can't wait any longer. Let Sam mind the bar and Frank keep order – you and I are going to talk!"


	5. Chapter 5

Sitting at a table near the side door of the Long Branch, Kitty felt more at home than she had anywhere else that morning. Sam's face had broken into a huge smile at the sight of her, and that had warmed her heart as much as Annie's embrace. She sipped at the coffee he had brought over to their table, in her familiar blue willow pot, and was further warmed by the tot of whiskey he'd clearly added. She had been paying more attention to her own reactions to the familiar room than to Annie's chatter until one word brought her up short.

"You're _what_?"

"We're going to get married," Annie repeated, glad to have captured Kitty's wandering attention. Her stream of prattle seemed to dry up with that statement, and she sat quiet her hands folded and her eyes on them under the long, observant stare Kitty directed on her.

What Kitty wanted most to ask was, "Are you sure?", but she didn't. She'd foreseen this action for some months – although she'd hoped maybe the pair would put it off. "When?" was the only thing she finally asked, and Annie let out a long breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"We thought Christmas day. We can hold the usual party here on Christmas Eve and then close the place for a day or two. I know the bars do a good business on Christmas, but we can afford to miss that trade this once." Annie's hazel eyes met Kitty's blue ones in a gaze that was a little hesitant, but her voice was very sure. "I want to be married at Kincaid." Kitty nodded slowly. That was certainly right. Matt had offered Annie a home at Kincaid, and to be married from her father's house was how things should be.

Kitty reached over to hold Annie's clasped hands. She had to say it at least once. "Annie, to my certain knowledge Sam is twenty years older than I am. That makes him thirty years older than you. Have you talked through what that's going to mean? Not now maybe, but… later?" She expected offence or even hostility, but Annie didn't take umbrage at the remark.

"We have." It took a few minutes of silence there in the unquiet room. Down at the far end of the bar Sam was laying out a tray of bread, and cheese, and pickles with a big bowl of boiled eggs sitting next to it. Two men were standing at the bar, talking while they drank their beer and munched at the free lunch. Cora sat at her table in front dealing a hand of blackjack to some men who might be drifters, or drummers, or clerks. The batwing doors had been fastened back against the wall, but one saloon door was open letting bright, chill sunshine draw a line across the floor.

"I do know what I want, Kitty," Annie said at last. "And this is it. Every day we wait, it's a day we miss. Sam… well at first he thought we should just live here together. He didn't want to 'tie me down'. He says he wants more for me than an old man and a rowdy saloon." Kitty rolled her eyes at that. She'd heard similar words all too often. "But this is where I want to be. This is what I want to do. Nothing lasts forever. I know that," she clutched at Kitty's hands, "I do know that no matter how young you think I am. But…" Annie looked piercingly into the older woman's eyes, "Why can't we have our time together? I know it won't be for the rest of my life, but I think maybe it will be the best of my life."

"Christmas is a fine time to be married, Annie. Kincaid is your home. It will always be your home as long as Matt and I are there. Do you want a big wedding?"

The sparkle came back to Annie's eyes as she shook her head, "No. Not very big. But I want my family there. Can we have that?"

"Now that's something you'll have to ask Matt. I'll speak for the house, but not for Matt's feelings about his family. Our last little adventure with his brother did not go well."

Annie brushed that off. "Not Uncle Rafe, no. But Ray and Web, and maybe maybe some of the girls. Rafe and the aunts, they wouldn't come if I invited them, but I think my cousins would, and they could bring Mark with them. And Louisa and Johnny – Denver's not that far." She hesitated, but only for a moment. "And Luke. I haven't seen Luke in ten years, Kitty, but he's finishing his work at the hospital in San Francisco this fall. I hadn't even told anybody else, but I wrote and asked him. He said he'll come. He never wanted to come near Dodge City, but he says he'll come for my wedding, no matter what."

There didn't seem to be any answer to that. Luke. And the father he apparently resembled but rejected. It would make for an interesting time. If anyone could hold that crew together it would be Annie.

"Don't you have any family, Kitty?" The question burst at Kitty out of the blue.

She shook her head slowly. "No." It was a slow word. "None that I claim, or that claim me. My father might still be alive." Those words were like stones, and Annie drew back a little just hearing them. "But I will never meet with him again. I wouldn't offer the man a drop of cool water in hell."

"No one else?"

This was not a subject Kitty cared to discuss. "No," she said again. "My mother died when I was young, not quite twelve, and her father, my grandfather, well, he was alive then, but he'd be very old if he were still alive now. And he never recognized my existence. I was an only child, and so was she."

"Did you never know her people? You came from New Orleans, I know, but surely you must have some kin there?"

"No one I know or who would care to know me, I'm afraid." Kitty replied. "My grandfather had a plantation north of the city, out along Lake Pontchartrain, but I was never there, at least not that I remember. My mother's people came from further up along the river. Baton Rouge? No, Natchez, I think. I never met them. Hattie would know."

"And who's Hattie?"

This lifted Kitty's lips in smiling remembrance. "She was a slavewoman my grandfather sent to live with us. He supported my mother. He never acknowledged her marriage, but he must have cared for her. After my father left her, he gave her a little house in town and enough money to live on. And Hattie. Hattie raised me. Her mother had come south with my grandmother from… well, from wherever, when she came to marry my grandfather. Hattie knew more about the family than the family knew themselves."

"Where is she now, Kitty?"

Those memories weren't as good. "I don't know. I saw her once, during those years I was working at the Golden Lily in New Orleans. War was over then, so she was free, and she seemed to be doing well. Said she was cooking at a boarding house and that her boys were with her. She had two boys. Cairo wasn't much more than a baby when my mother died, but Caleb, he was just a little younger than me. He helped around the house, ran errands, played with me when we were small. I don't know what happened to Hattie. I always meant to find out, after I got settled here in Dodge." She shrugged. "But I never did. Lucy might know. I could ask her. I need to write her anyway to let her know I'm married."

Annie popped to her feet with her hands briefly covering her mouth. "Oh, Kitty, I'm sorry! I should have given it to you right off! I've been collecting your mail. I opened most things because they looked like business for the Long Branch but there was a letter just a couple of days ago, a personal letter it looked like, from someone in New Orleans. I think the name was Lucy. I'll run get it now," she said turning and heading for the office.

Kitty sat quite still. She had been planning to write Lucy about her marriage. One of the carefully non-specific letters full of only good news and scenic descriptions of life on the prairie. _Why would Lucy write me now_ , she wondered, _it's not even close to Christmas?_ The answer was going to be more than she bargained for.


	6. Chapter 6

Annie brought Kitty a heavy, sealed envelope and with it the small, sharp knife that Kitty remembered from her desk there at the Long Branch. She'd had the knife a long time. She's used it for opening mail in recent years. Once she'd used it to kill a man. Perhaps she'd find a nice letter opener for Annie and keep this knife. She looked where it fit solidly in her hand. Or maybe she'd buy herself a pretty, decorated mail knife and leave the memories behind. She sliced open the top of the envelope, but then turned it over, staring at it, without removing the letter.

It was from Lucy Critt all right – Lucy Martin she was now. It was more than the simple address in the top corner – Mrs. Lucy Martin, Rue d'Enfant, New Orleans – it was the writing. Kitty thought she would recognize that ornate copperplate hand anywhere. She'd written like that herself once, although it had never come as easily to her as to Lucy. The board floor and rough tables around her disappeared and she was sitting at the kitchen table in her mother's home. The spicy smell of cooking came from a pot bubbling on the stove, and Hattie was there, peeling potatoes, her nappy hair tied up in a bright red _tignon_ that stood out as sharply from the dull grey-brown dress she wore as did the shining whiteness of her apron. There was cocoa on the table, in two blue willow cups, and a plate of gingerbread. "You could do it if you tried, Kitty. I know you could. You just have to practice," that was Lucy, sitting beside her at the table as the girls copied out their lesson from a shared book on carefully angled pieces of paper. "My baby girl, she can do anything if she try," that was Hattie. Kitty knew then that she had to make the effort. It hurt Hattie too much when she came home with raised red welts across the palms of her hands inflicted by Sister Celine as punishment for her sloppy penmanship. She picked up the pen, dipped it, wiped the extra ink away on the edge of the bottle, and began a precise capital T.

The sound of hearty laughter from across the room returned her to the deal table at the saloon. She looked thoughtfully at the blue willow coffee flask and cups. She'd always loved that set. But it wasn't until this moment that she'd remembered the blue willow cups in Hattie's kitchen where she and Lucy had sat nearly every afternoon to do their schoolwork. She spread her hands in front of her, palms up, and was almost surprised not to see the marks left by stinging blows. She wondered if she could still write a fine copperplate line. _Time and tide wait for no man_. That was the practice line she'd studied to perfection. But she'd changed her writing to a plainer, more rounded style – and been pleased with it – soon after she left Lucy's home and Saint Agnes Seminary for girls. Her eyes devoured the smooth, spikey letters on the envelope – Miss Kitty Russell, Dodge City, Kansas. Lucy had never changed from the handwriting taught her by the nuns. To this day she lived in a copperplate world. Kitty sighed and drew out the letter. Several pages written on thick, creamy linen paper. She didn't have a good feeling about this.

 _Tuesday, 16 October 1888_

 _My dearest Kitty,_

 _I begin by assuring you that the family and I are well and in good health. I do this because I know that you will be surprised to hear from me at this time of year. Despite time and distance, I do think of you often, my friend, and wonder what your life is really like behind those kind and interesting letters you so carefully send to me every Christmas. You know my life so well. It is the life you should have led. Except for the war, it is much the same life as our mothers lived, and probably our grandmothers. And we have come to terms with the war, and the release of our slaves, more calmly here in New Orleans, I think, than in most of the south. Unlike many places, trade and shipping were never really hampered here. There have always been free blacks in this city, and now there are many more, but our lives go on. I have been thinking much on this topic since Brother Bill asked me, last evening, to write to you._

 _As you know, Brother Bill has for some years been working in father's bank. This last spring he took over the management of that establishment when father's health began to decline. I can just see you, Kitty, trying to imagine little Billy Critt as a banker instead of the tagalong baby brother who plagued us both all those years ago. I know that you saw him some dozen years ago on that trip that he made to the west, but although he spoke of you with great kindness and respect, he could never be persuaded to tell much about his actual visit. He says that you own a business, and the fact that he will not name or describe it leads me to believe that in may be something less genteel than a dressmaker's shop or a boarding house. He also says that you have good friends there in Kansas and that one of them is a policeman. I tell you this because it may be important to the help that we are going to ask from you._

 _I must begin my story, but it is a little difficult to put in writing a topic that I would not speak of even with my closest friends here at home. Still, I must start somewhere, so I will tell you that our Nell stayed with the family through all the bad times. We paid her wages, once that became the way of things, but while so many others left their homes and families behind, Nell has always been faithful. So it was not unusual for her to speak to me from time to time of your Hattie whom I remembered from our childhood years. It is about Hattie and her family that I write this out of season letter._

 _Hattie uses the name of Potter now, and that is quite appropriate as she runs a small restaurant called the_ Pot au Feu _that I am told is quite successful. I have never been there as Brother Bill says it is in a quarter of the city where I would not feel myself welcome. Nonetheless, I hear tales of it on occasion and remember the wonderful food that she made for us as children. Her son Cairo works with her there, but her boy Caleb works as a coachman and groom for Bill._

 _Some mishap has occurred that has put young Cairo in fear of his life. Bill brought Hattie and the whole family here to my home last Sunday and asked me to keep them under wraps in the old quarters in the cellar until he could arrange a place for them. I believe that he spoke to your grandfather Beaufort, but that the old man would not succor them. He plans to take them all to our country house where Father is now in residence. It seems odd, Kitty, that I, who know least about the situation, should be the one to write to you, but my brother has insisted. He says that the whole Potter family is in danger here in the city, and that even out at our place on the lake they will not be safe._

 _I spoke with Hattie at length, but while perfectly polite she refused to explain a word about what happened. I believe that she talked more with Nell, but, uncharacteristically, Nell will not share the story. Nonetheless, whatever has happened, Hattie needs your help. It is Brother Bill's intention to take them all by train to your home in Kansas where he tells me he feels sure that you can find them work. He awaits a telegram in which you acquiesce to this arrangement._

 _I also send you greetings from Hattie and a message which may be simply the wistful remembrance of an old retainer, but which she asked me to pass on word for word. I wrote it down just as she said it, painful grammar and all. "I done pray for you every day of my life, little girl, and I know you be safe. Now I ask you to pray so that me and mine be safe too. God willing I see you soon."_

 _I look forward to a speedy response from you, my dear Kitty, and I am hopeful that someday soon, when all is resolved, that you will let yourself believe that I am grown and experienced enough to hear the truth of this affair, woman to woman, without the reticence with which Brother Bill continues to protect me._

 _Your loving friend,_

 _Lucy_

 _Postscript_

 _I reopen this letter to tell you the horrid news from the afternoon paper. Hattie's little restaurant was pillaged, searched, and burned last night even as Bill and I sat here in the parlor making plans. Before I was troubled. Now I am frightened. Please, Kitty, send us word as soon as may be. Lucy_

Kitty turned the envelope over in her hand. It was postmarked 17 October in New Orleans. There was a two cent stamp in the corner, and under it a blue ten cent Special Delivery stamp and the single word "Urgent" printed in manuscript and underlined. Three pages of paper. All those hundreds of words. The complicated sentences and neat, round little commas with their flowing tails. Ten days it had taken the letter to get to her, and all it had really needed was one ten-word telegram that would have been in her hands within hours.

Shaking her head she looked up then, to see both Doc and Newly sitting quietly across from her. She hadn't heard or seen them arrive.

"Bad news, Kitty?" Doc asked.

"No." Then she said it more firmly, "No. Likely just the opposite." She stopped for a moment and then looked directly in the old man's eyes, "You believe in prayer, Doc? You believe that prayers can be answered?"

"You know I do, Kitty. Though usually it's our hands that do His work."

Kitty smiled at that, because it was just the way she felt herself. And her hands were itching to get started. "One of you gents got a pencil?" Doc started to unfasten his bag, but Newly pulled out a stub from his pocket and handed it to her. She thought for just a moment. She only had ten words. Then she flipped the envelope over and printed her message boldly on the back.

AWAITING ARRIVAL HATTIE AND FAMILY. START SOON AS POSSIBLE. KITTY

"Will you go over to the telegraph office for me, Newly? And send this message to the lady who sent the letter? It's pretty important." She took a silver dollar out of her reticule and handed him the coin and the envelope.

"You know I will, Kitty. I'll be back in a few minutes. But you just sit here and wait because it's me taking you to dinner tonight, not Doc."

Kitty laughed at that, feeling suddenly lighter than she had for days.


	7. Chapter 7

In the end it was not only Newly but Doc and Frank as well who escorted her to dinner. Sam and Annie regretfully turned down the invitation. They had work to do. And that made Kitty's brain whirl a little as she looked at the saloon business from the outside for possibly the first time in her life. She thought of all the times she'd taken her dinner break at Delmonico's with Matt – and then of all the evenings she hadn't been able to because she was busy running her establishment. She wondered, now, if Matt had been as bothered by that as she had been bothered by his long trips out of town. For the most part neither of them had complained. But not complaining was a way of life for them in those years.

It was a festive evening, and for once the restaurant had a decent cook. Of course that meant that Joe was not best pleased to have one of his prime tables occupied for two hours when he had customers waiting. He might have hurried Doc and Newly along, but when you added Kitty Russell and the new Marshal to the mix, no one in Dodge was about to raise a fuss.

Midway through their meal, Kitty asked about Festus. Frank had said something about him escorting a prisoner to Hays and that he expected him back soon, but they had been interrupted before she got the whole story. Now Doc calmly continued eating while Newly regarded his plate with some embarrassment, but Frank just laughed easily and started in on the kind of story that a man didn't share with a lady. Less than a week back, probably figuring that Dodge was wide open again in the absence of Marshal Dillon, one of Bonner's gang of dog soldiers had ridden into town and lighted down at the Lady Gay. It hadn't taken more than a few minutes of the man's mouth and the pistol in his hand to make his expectations clear. But the hero of the piece was a hard-eyed saloon girl named Ruby. She taken a bottle of whiskey from Jase Elliot's hand with a wink and a nod of her head towards the rear door and walked up to that desperado bold as brass. An invitation to leave the barroom for the privacy of her quarters upstairs, along with the bottle she held, appealed to the outlaw.

"When I kicked in the door about five minutes later she had him naked as a jaybird and the only piece he was holdin' was his…" but Frank broke that off at a hard look from Doc. "Anyway, the man was wanted for murder, among other things, in both Kansas and Colorado, so I figured I'd let them work out the details in Hays. Festus started up there with him four days ago."

Kitty wiped her mouth and took a sip of her coffee. Matt would have taken the prisoner himself – unwilling to let another man take chances that he felt were his own duty. Frank probably saw that thought in her eyes. He shrugged. "Darlin', you know Matt and I do things different. We usually get the same results though. I feel like I need to be here in town, and I'm makin' that as clear as I can to those gents in Washington. Now Festus, he was a friend of Ruby's and while he was mighty proud of what she done…"

Two hands descended with gentle firmness on her shoulders, and Festus himself finished Frank's statement, "I weren't too happy with the way that no-good dog treated her. How you doin', Miss Kitty? Matthew here in town with ya?"

The men scooted their chairs over to make room for the newcomer, and Newly snagged a chair from another table and placed it next to Kitty. "Mighty nice to see you back, Festus. No Matt's not with me this time. I just drove in with Doc to take care of a few things." She frowned. "Was Ruby hurt?"

"Not so much as she mighta been, Miss Kitty, but her dress was all tore up an' her face was bleedin' some. Doc fixed her up, but still, ain't no need to treat a woman like that, 'specially one who come with him all willin'."

"Why do men do that?" Kitty asked, not expecting a response. But she got one.

"Some men are just purely mean, Kitty, and others, well, they need to make someone else feel small so they can feel big," Frank told her soberly, "And it's less dangerous to beat a woman than to fight a man. Women do that too, ya' know, but they usually cut a man, or another woman, down to size with their tongue. Men are more likely to do it with their fists. Ruby knew that. You know it too, darlin', you just don't like to think on it. She was a brave girl, and I'm going to see to it that she gets the reward that's comin' for it." He turned to Festus, all business, "You have any problem takin' him in?"

Festus snorted, already making inroads into the bowl of stew Joe had placed in front of him. "With his hands tied behind his back and my rope around his neck the whole way? If he'd a'tried to run off he'd a'ended up draggin' dead behind ol' Ruth the rest of the way to Hays. I 'splained it to him proper before we ever headed out. Told him which way I'd pree-fer to see it go." He shook his head a little sadly, and downed another spoonful of stew. "He jus' din want to oblige me none, though. Handed him over to the sheriff in Hays, had me a drink and a meal, and started home. I would a' come some faster, Miss Kitty, if I'd a'knowed you'd be here. How you and Matthew doin' out there at that big ol' ranch?"

"We're fine, Festus. Matt's workin' hard out with the men. But I was beginnin' to feel bad that no one had come out to visit us. Thought maybe you didn't like us anymore."

Festus regarded Doc triumphantly. "Now ya see, you ol' scudder? I told you Miss Kitty would be lookin' for us to make a weddin' visit, but you gone and said…"

"Never mind what I said, Festus," Doc interrupted him. "Have you heard Kitty's news? She's got old friends from New Orleans on the way up here to stay with her."

That topic took a while to finish, and a boy came in with a telegram for Kitty just about the same time Joe, hoping maybe that their meal was about to end, dealt out slices of pie to the whole party. Kitty read the ten words and then handed the telegram thoughtfully to Doc.

WILL START UPRIVER TOMORROW. LOOK FOR US MID NOVEMBER. BILL

"Well, what's it say, Miss Kitty?" Festus demanded as the telegram passed from hand to hand. "It from your folks in New Or-leens?"

"Yes it is, Festus. Bill Critt says he's starting tomorrow and will be here in, oh, two weeks or so."

"Two weeks! Golly Bill, Miss Kitty, it don't take that long to cross the whole NewNited States on them there new railroads! They comin' by wagon?"

Kitty shook her head, but it was Doc who answered, "They'll likely take a riverboat to St. Louis, and that shouldn't be too hard, although it's slow, but then they'll have to take trains from there on out across Missouri and Kansas." His voice was terse and cross. "Maybe you didn't understand, Festus, but the family that's coming out to see Miss Kitty are Negroes, people that worked for her family before the war."

"Well, I knowed that, Doc. I heard Miss Kitty explain all that, but…"

Kitty spoke gently. Festus had clearly never lived in a place where black and white mingled. "They'll have to travel freight, Festus. Billy could get a ticket all the way through and be here in three or four days, but he'll have to stop at every town on the line and arrange for room in a baggage car. If there is room. And it will be hard for them to find a place to stay between. Billy can get a hotel room, but the Potters can't. And the railroad won't want them hanging around the station. They'll have to camp outside town, or find a colored family that will take them in. If it were just one servant, Bill could likely get away with it pretty steady, but a whole family, a woman and two grown men, that's not going to be easy."

Newly raised his hand, a signal for which Joe was eagerly waiting, and paid their bill. "Come on, Kitty, I'll walk you back to the boarding house."

7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7

Kitty had hoped for Matt's old room, not that she had spent much time in it, but at least it was familiar. Apparently, though, a room with an outside entrance wasn't right for a married lady, and she had a small but pleasant bedroom on the upper floor. It also amazed her how odd, since she'd used one all her life, a chamberpot seemed after just a month of inside plumbing. There was one fairly comfortable chair, but no table or desk. Kitty sat tailor-fashion on the bed and spread out Polly's papers in front of her. She had snuck a weighty book of photographs up from Ma's parlor. Its hard surface served her to make notes and sums on the back of one of the papers with the stub of Newly's borrowed pencil. Polly's arithmetic was sound, but she queried out each premise in her mind, and then ran the numbers herself, before leaning back against the pillows and stretching out her legs.

She wondered why Botkin had denied Polly the loan - because twelve percent interest and a mortgage was clearly an indication that he didn't want to do business. Did he really think she couldn't pay it off? The banker was a hard man, but a canny one. This plan was clearly going to make money. And wasn't that what bankers did? Make money? She closed her eyes and spread her thoughts across the town. Her own innate sense of fair play blinded her for a bit, but eventually, with a sour look, she hit on it. If one person made money, then another person would not. As things stood, the two dry good stores – two of Botkin's best customers - were earning a nice profit on every dress made in the county. If they lost even half that trade to Polly Mason… And if they found out Botkin had financed Polly's business… Well, that certainly wouldn't make for good dealings among the business men who thought they ran Dodge City. She tidied the papers and Ma's book into a neat stack and laid them on the floor.

Using water that had been hot an hour or so ago, Kitty washed her face and hands in the basin on top of the low dresser. She stripped out of her day clothes and hung them neatly on the hooks next to the window before slipping a flannel nightgown over her head and buttoning it up to her chin. It was a chilly night, but the room seemed close and a little stale. She cracked open the window, removed the derringer from her reticule, blew out the lamp, and hurried into bed. Her body soon warmed a comfortable nest in the covers. She hadn't expected sleep to come quickly, and it did not.

She let her mind tease line by line through Lucy's letter. So her grandfather was still alive. That was news. And the Critt family were still in touch with Etienne Beaufort. It made sense in a way. It was how she'd come to know Lucy. The Critts and the Beauforts were old New Orleans, and had known each other for years, likely generations. Her mother and Lucy's mother, a Dupre in those years before her marriage, had been childhood friends - had shared a room at St. Anges Seminary in their own day. She herself had been quite content at the Critt home. The family had not been happy when she had to leave. She wondered idly what her life would have been like if she had stayed – a hanger on, a poor 'relation', treated kindly but never quite as one of their own? Or would Charles Critt, or even his father, have embarrassed her own grandfather into providing for her? It was all water under the bridge. She concentrated firmly on the bits of information Lucy had let drop.

So Nell had remained 'faithful'. Not a surprise. Nell was a shrewd woman and also a pretty one. She knew where her bread was buttered, and what would likely happen to her on the streets. Nell and Hattie had always been close, taking their young charges to and from school, sharing work – Nell the better seamstress and Hattie the better cook – not that their respective families, other than the children, had ever known about that. That likely explained why Billy Critt had hired Hattie's son as a groom. It was more comfortable to trust people who had worked with your family before the war, and Caleb, even in those early childhood days, had always been good with horses. His raging ambition at the age of eight had been to become a jockey, but by ten it was clear he was already growing too big.

Now what could young Cairo - he couldn't be more than twenty three or four - have done that would have sent the watch out after his whole family? Murder or even assault would be her first thought, but it had to be something too private, too embarrassing for Brother Bill to even mention to Sister Lucy. Rape? No, Bill wouldn't have defended Cairo or any other black man against that charge, true or not. It must have something to do with one of the white families involved, something that made Cairo an embarrassment but not a criminal. And the easiest thing to do about an embarrassment, if the person were colored, was to sweep him permanently under the rug. Still. If Billy was involving himself, if he had applied to her grandfather for help, was taking a month off from his business… And why bring them to her? Yes, Hattie and her boys had belonged to her family, but… all the way to Kansas?

It was too much. There were too many loose ends. She would have to wait and hear the story when they arrived in Dodge. She shivered just a little and pulled the quilts closer around her neck. She wished Matt were here. Things always made more sense when she talked them through with him. Why had she ever thought that a night in town would be a good idea? On this depressing thought, sleep overcame her.

7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7

Kitty was sitting at the writing desk in Ma Smalley's parlor carefully copying out a very straightforward loan contract – $500 with an annual interest of six percent due quarterly and the balance of the loan due at the end of two years – before the smell of frying bacon began to amble through the big, old house. She had washed in cold water, dressed in a clean shirtwaist and yesterday's black skirt, and packed her bag all before stealing down to the parlor at dawn. She hadn't slept well. She was eager to complete her business and head home. She hoped that Matt would send Cookie in early, and that they could be on their way back by noon. The sky outside the front windows was grey and cloudy – a far cry from yesterday's clear, autumn sunshine.

She blotted her paper, waved it gently back and forth to finish drying, and when she was sure it wouldn't smear, she rolled it up and placed it in her reticule. Both reticule and carpet bag stood inconspicuously behind a chair in the parlor when Kitty went in to help Ma with breakfast.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes past eight – an hour she'd rarely seen during her long tenancy in Dodge City – when she stepped briskly down the boardwalk towards Polly Mason's dress shop. The familiar clop of a team of horses pulling up beside her made her turn her head to look into the street. There was Cookie driving a buckboard with one of the Kincaid teams hitched on, and riding beside him on a tall, blue roan was Matt Dillon, grinning at her to beat the band.


	8. Chapter 8

This is a long one, and I think it's what you've been waiting for. But I'm on my way to Iowa for my oldest son's wedding at the Friends Meeting House in West Branch. I'm bringing my computer but I'm really thinking it will be a week before I'm able to post... the rest of the story. Enjoy! Rose

8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8

Seemed like Matt had been lonely too. He dismounted and tied his gelding on behind the wagon before coming over to slip an arm around her waist where she stood on the sidewalk. "You drive on, Cookie. We'll meet you at the dry goods in an hour or so. It will likely take longer than that for Jonas to put up your order."

Cookie tipped his hat to her, and chirruped to his team. He wasn't the kind who said much, but his biscuits were almost as light as her own and his beans were spicy and rich with sidemeat.

Matt looked up and down the street like a little kid about to vault the fence into a neighbor's apple orchard and then gave her a quick kiss. "I missed you."

"I missed you too. I knew by yesterday afternoon this was a fool idea, but there wasn't much to do then."

He squeezed her waist. "We'll think it out better next time." She agreed and took his arm to amble down towards the center of town. The bank wasn't open, but the marshal's office was. Festus and Frank both greeted Matt with warm handshakes before starting right in on the town news. Kitty had heard most of it yesterday and figured the men could talk more freely without her so she excused herself to go see that Jonas had put up her order correctly and to pick through the small shelf of stationary supplies. She needed a new ledger, like the ones she had kept at the Long Branch, and picked out a selection of pencils, pens, and ink. She added a banded set of envelopes and a tablet of good writing paper. All her own supplies, except her paper knife, were still in the office at the saloon. And the knife was in her pocket. Well, it was only right. Those things belonged with the Long Branch. These bit and pieces would make do for now, and she could order more from one of the stores in Topeka when she figured out just what she needed. It was amazing, when you thought about it, that she could write out an order, have the letter delivered in less than two days, and get her package on the train the following week. Who would have thought, before the railroads came through, that a body could do a thing like that?

She was sitting on the railing in front of the feed supplies, and swinging a foot lazily back and forth while listening absently to Wilbur Jonas' querulous murmurings when she noticed a small crowd gathering in front of the store. It was Frank and Matt going over the big, blue roan that Matt had ridden. Festus and a number of other men had joined in the examination. Not wanting to hinder the conversation with a lady's presence, Kitty stood quietly in the doorway listening and trying not to giggle.

Kitty knew the horse, and she also couldn't imagine any circumstances other than fire, flood, or bushwhackers that would see Matt riding an uncut stud into town. Still, he was a tall horse, and he did have that heavy neck. But when Burke actually moved the geldings tail aside to look between his back legs it was all she could do not hold back a laugh behind her hand.

"You like him, Frank?"

"Couldn't not like him, Matt. He's a good-lookin' horse. Legs long enough for some real speed."

"He's yours if you want him, partner. I know you came to town with just one mount."

Frank ran a hand down the roan's neck and then stepped up to stroke his face. "I can't afford him, Matt. Horse like this should bring you two, maybe three hundred dollars."

"Mebbe. In another year. Jake was lookin' at him for stud, but decided against it just last summer. He's five years old. He's broke, and he's pretty well behaved, but it will take a good horseman to really train him up right. I don't have the time or the interest, so I thought of you. You work him good over the winter, and he'll be fit for the trail by spring. He'd never make a cattle horse."

Frank still shook his head, but Matt went on. "What's money ever been between you and me, Frank? You give me a hundred for him, pay me when you can, and I'll be happy."

The gelding snorted and laid his lips into Frank's hand looking for a treat. Kitty scooped up and apple from the barrel beside the door and tossed it to him. Frank caught it left handed, took out his knife to split it open, and fed it to the blue horse.

"You in on this, Kitty?"

"Nope. But I knew Matt was going to sell him."

Frank nodded then, and reached out a slightly slobbered hand to Matt. "A hundred and fifty, and I'll pay you by Christmas." Matt shook on the deal.

Festus stood by shaking his head, and Burke stepped up on the sidewalk commenting that he'd never seen a man sell a horse for more than he had asked. But Kitty had. She'd seen Matt do the same thing before, with the right man, and have the same results.

"I'm headin' over to the bank, Matt. And then I've got some business with my dressmaker. I'll be ready to go in half an hour."

As it happened, it was nearly two before they got away.

Botkin wasn't thrilled with Kitty's withdrawal from her personal account, and he made a point of asking what she was going to do with all that money. Kitty smiled and wrote out a second slip for the ranch account asking for a two twenty in tens for the payroll and another twenty in coin for herself. Polly Mason was willing enough to take Kitty's loan, all tied up in the ribbon of a straightforward business contract. She balked a bit at the amount, but Kitty told her to rework her figures and see how her discount improved with a larger purchase. She also asked her to be sure to pick up a nice dark green lustring silk. There was going to be a wedding at Kincaid that winter, and she was going to be dressed for it.

Back at the dry goods, Cookie had left to eat someone else's cooking at Delmonico's. Jonas, still muttering, stacking things on the counter, and adding prices to their lists, told her that Matt had gone over to the Long Branch. She found him there, congratulating Sam, and listening to much the same story from Annie that Kitty had heard yesterday.

A hand clasping her upper arm and shaking it slightly, Matt agreed to the wedding party. "But you keep things in line, young lady. I'm happy with Mark and Web and Ray and as many girls as you like. And I'd be mighty pleased to see May Lou and Johnny, but I will not have Rafe or my sisters in the house. Do you hear that plain?"

Kitty had never heard him sound so much like a father in her whole life.

"Yes, sir." Annie hesitated just a moment. "And Luke?"

"Annie…" Matt's arm went around her shoulders, "Your brother is just as welcome in my home as you are. But you just leave it up to him. Done?"

"Done!" She swung her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. "We're going to have a fine time come Christmas, just you wait and see."

Annie and Doc both insisted on having lunch with them before they left, but Annie cooked it herself – filling the tiny kitchen behind the barroom to capacity - so they weren't interrupted by a gaggle of hangers on as Kitty showed her husband Lucy's letter and told him what was behind it.

They headed out of town, stopping briefly to pick up Kitty's carpetbag, with Matt and Kitty on the wagon seat and Cookie stretched out and apparently sleeping among a dozen bags of flour. They didn't talk much at first, but Kitty noticed a glum, hardness in Matt's eyes that she recognized all too well. "Something Frank said?" she finally asked.

Matt nodded, glancing back at their silent passenger and then shrugging. "Frank and I, well, we both wonder what that dog soldier was doing in Dodge. Bonner's men usually work west of here. Wyoming. Sometimes Colorado. I've never seen him in Kansas before."

"But you've seen him? You'd know him?"

"Frank and I have both seen him, Kitty, but it's not a story I'll tell you, so don't ask."

A mile or so further on, just as the horses were pricking up their ears and scenting their own stable ahead, Matt finished the topic. "I think this was just a fluke, Kitty. Bonner doesn't hold herd on his men. Don't let it bother you."

Kitty acquiesced with a nod, but wondered to herself, _a fluke… or a scout?_

8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8

Home seemed more welcome than it ever had. Matt helped her down at the back door, and the two of them unloaded Kitty's supplies onto the porch before leaving Cookie to drive the wagon on through to the bunk house. Matt pulled a key from his pocket to unlock the kitchen door, and that surprised his wife.

"You locked the house? I never thought of doing that when I left."

"Foolish I suppose," he commented mildly as he lifted a box and brought it in to sit on the kitchen table. "Anyone wanted to get in could just break a window or force the door."

Kitty looked around the big kitchen, seeing everything just as she'd left it except for a few dishes in the sink. But it suddenly didn't seem quite the haven that it always had before. She heard clearly what Matt wasn't saying. He wasn't afraid of a thief, he was worried that he'd come home and find someone waiting for him with a gun. If the doors were still locked and the windows unbroken, then likely no unsuspected visitors were waiting inside. "Not foolish, Matt. Sensible," she replied. "I'll remember."

For many years she or Sam had walked every room of the Long Branch each night checking for stragglers, or worse, before he had left, and she had gone up to bed. Although locked doors had not proved a deterrent to Lou Stone. Or Mannon.

The couple were quiet as Kitty unpacked the wooden carton and Matt brought in bags of flour and sugar from the porch. Kitty started coffee and turned around to pick up her apron where she had left it on the back of a kitchen chair. Matt was standing quietly looking at her. She walked into his arms.

"You know I'll do my best to keep you safe, Kitty."

She rubbed her face against the soft leather vest where his badge no longer hung. "But you want me to know you may have to expend some effort doin' that."

"Yeah."

Kitty stepped back just a little to look up at him. Her hands smoothed his shirt and twitched the collar before she reached up to cup his cheek. "Nothin' we haven't known for a long time now, Matt. I'm pretty good at taking care of myself you know."

"I do know that, Kitty. Sometimes you do it better than I do." He let out a tiny breath of a sigh. "I always try to leave some of the hands here at the home place, but sometimes… well, sometimes that isn't possible. I wish you had somebody in the house with you."

She tilted her head and sharp blue eyes met his. "Like Hattie?"

But that brought a more gusty sigh. "I just don't know, Kitty. I need to see what trouble she's bringing before I decide what's right."

Kitty rose on tip toe to kiss him lightly, but her voice was solid as she turned back to her apron and the sink. "I can understand that, Matt. You don't know these people. But I do. So set your mind clear on one thing – if Hattie wants to make her home here with me, then I _will_ have her. She may not want to. She may be just looking for a helping hand, and she'll get that, but if she wants to settle down then my home is hers."

"That sounds a lot like what I said to Annie a few months ago."

The smile she gave him as she handed him a cup of coffee and nodded him to a chair at the table told him that for once he'd got it right. It was just like that.

8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8

Matt went a little short on breakfast the next morning. There was coffee, and Kitty was drinking a cup of it while she perused a tall, slender, bound journal. There was cold ham on the table and a loaf of bread. Matt found butter and jam in the pantry and watched Kitty as he ate.

"Payday's at ten this morning, Matt, and then the men are free until after church tomorrow. You can tell them that if they ask, but I don't think they will."

He hiked himself out to the barn without comment. After his own chores, and a brief inspection of the work done by his crew, he found himself a spot on the top rail of the corral. It looked like he was watching the horses, but he kept a circumspect eye on the back porch. About quarter of ten Kitty lifted a small table through the door and set it in front of the steps. Normally he would have jumped down to help her, but he kept his place as she went back in for one of the kitchen chairs. She sat there behind the little table. The new ledger she had picked up yesterday at Jonas' store was open in front of her and she was making notes in it, dipping her pen neatly in the bottle of ink set carefully on the corner of the table. A stack of banknotes stuck out under the edge of the ledger.

About the time that Kitty finished writing Matt saw activity begin around the door to the bunkhouse. It was the foreman, Bat Ford, who came up first, removing his hat as he walked up the two stairs to the porch. Matt was too far away to hear, but their short conversation contained smiles on both sides. Kitty handed over several bills, which Bat folded and tucked in his back pocket, and made a note with her pen in the ledger. By the time Bat had descended the stairs Tope Myers was walking up towards the house. It went slow like that until the end when the two newest hands, Tony Rider and Mike Johnston, came up together – Mike moving from one foot to the other impatiently at the bottom of the stairs while Kitty paid Tony and insisted on looking at his injured hand. The last transaction went quickly, and the two young men sped off towards the front gate where the other hands awaited them with saddled horses.

Matt walked up to the back porch as his crew spurred their horses and headed out for Dodge City with their pockets full of pay. Hat in hand he presented himself at Kitty's table. She hummed a little and made a point of running her finger down the line of names in her book. Finally she shook her head and met his amused stare with sparkling eyes. "Sorry, cowboy, your name's not on my list." She closed the book and lifted it to look underneath. "And I'm out of cash, anyways." She pushed her chair back a little and stood up. "You got something else in mind?"

He didn't answer but lifted her squealing over his shoulder and proceeded into the house and up the stairs to their bed.

8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8

It seemed over the next two weeks that things began to settle into place at Kincaid. The work went on. The weather got colder. Matt brought more of the stock into closer pastures and had his men plow and sow two fields to winter wheat. They didn't like the plowing, but they did it, all but Bat taking their turns. Some furrows were straighter than others. Snow still held off, but the days were cool and the nights cold.

Matt, for the most part, spent his days on or near the home place, and Kitty took to asking one or another of the hands in for lunch or dinner a couple times a week. The food was good, and Matt let himself begin to relax more around his men – not feeling a constant need to prove himself. He remembered those earlier years with Chester always on his heels – competent, lazy, a little silly, a fine shot with a rifle, always obedient, always hungry, and with a heart full of love that neither man ever felt the need to mention.

Kitty's head was usually in a book these days, and the books were the ones that Rose Kincaid had written. He was surprised sometimes when she asked him questions. How many mares were in foal and what pasture were they in? Was he planning on a trip up to the hills to cut more firewood before Thanksgiving or after? He answered the first question easily. He thought a little about the second because it hadn't occurred to him, looking at the woodpile, that more would be needed. A little quick calculation though, and he saw the point. Grateful for her lead he told her he'd planned to wait until the first good snow so they could bring the logs back on sledges. He saw her making notes in her own ledger of both those things.

They began to have visitors. Festus first. And Festus most often. He showed up neatly in time for a meal a few times each week. Frank Reardon rode out one afternoon, had dinner, and spent the night. The two men sat late in big chairs in front of the fire, drinking and talking. Kitty sat with them for a while after the dishes were done, but outlaws, killings, hide outs, and rustlers were not her favorite topics. Both men stood when she got up to leave, and both kissed her goodnight, but that was one of the few nights Matt didn't wake her when he came in, She slept through until morning.

Doc didn't come often. He was busy. Too busy for a man his age. Dodge was growing, and the country all around was settling up solid. When in town, both Matt and Kitty talked to him, separately, about whether it might be time for him to bring in a partner. He pooh-poohed Kitty's concern, patted her hand, and challenged her to a game of checkers. But they never got a chance to finish because a little girl broke her arm over at the schoolhouse. Grabbing his bag, Doc hurried away.

He listened more soberly to Matt. "You callin' me old, Matt Dillion?" Matt let that hang for longer than Doc liked and then said, "Yes. Yes I am. I want you around for a good long time, Doc. I want you to deliver Kitty's babies." Doc's head perked up like a bird dog at that, but Matt shook his head. "Not now. Maybe not anytime soon. But you're gonna kill yourself, Doc, if you don't slow down some. And the only way I see that happening is if you take a partner." Doc grumbled but he agreed to look into it.

The two of them drove over to the Roninger's place one afternoon. Darkness came early this late in the year, but the moon was near full and Matt figured they could stay for an early dinner and still be able to see on the drive home. His mind went back, as they trundled along, to a summer night that seemed very long ago, but really wasn't. He'd come out to the ranch to pick up Kitty and take her back to Dodge. He'd slept in the barn, and Kitty had joined him there - ducking back into the house at first light with no one the wiser. He glanced over at his wife sitting beside him on the buggy seat and saw her smiling, too. He laughed out loud. But her response was all mock anger. "A vixen, eh? Wasn't that what you said that night? A vixen. You just wait until I get you home, Matt Dillon. I'll show you a vixen." And that stirred his loins enough that he almost turned the buggy around and headed back to the ranch. Almost.

When they did get home, an hour or two after full dark, Newly was there waiting for them. He turned down Kitty's offer of food saying he'd eaten at the cookhouse, and handed them a telegram from Bill Critt. It was already the 13th of November, and they had both been getting worried. Newly agreed to stay the night and head back to Dodge in the morning to spread the word that Hattie and her family would be arriving on the early train in two days' time.

8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8

It was a small local train. One that went from Pueblo to Wichita and back stopping at every whistle-stop along the Santa Fe route. The sun was barely up and shining flatly through the windows of the station when the engine and three cars pulled up alongside the Dodge City platform. They were all there. Frank, Doc, Newly, and Festus standing carefully back by the station wall with Sam. Annie's hand was tucked in her father's arm, but she dropped it and stood still in the middle of the platform as Matt and Kitty stepped forward. A slender, shortish man dressed in a white suit swung down from the rear platform of the second car. Both of them recognized Bill Critt in the composed gentleman who held out his hand first to Matt and then to Kitty, but he was a far cry from either the child she remembered from New Orleans or the young dandy who had visited her here in Dodge twelve years ago. _If I'd just met him today_ , Kitty thought, _it would be with some respect and maybe a little caution_. But what she said in her warmest voice was, "Billy, how very good to see you."

Critt nodded and gave her a tight smile. "Always a pleasure to see you, Miss Kitty, Marshal. But I suggest you wait a bit to decide whether or not you are pleased to see me." He walked along to the door of the baggage car and, to Kitty's surprise, reached up to help the conductor roll back the big panel. Two men stood in the wide doorway, blinking against the light. One was dark-skinned and wearing what could only be livery. The other, lighter and younger, wore ordinary work clothes. Both men jumped down onto the platform and then reached up to take the arms of an older Negro woman. Hattie was a bit heavier than Kitty remembered, and she wore a plain black dress that looked both crumbled and a little dirty. The bright red _tignon_ was the same as ever. Kitty ran forward with a glad cry, and the men swung their mother down practically into the younger woman's arms.

It was a surprise to find Hattie shorter than herself. Somehow she had never thought of her own head as being higher than Hattie's ample bosom. They hugged tightly, tears on both their faces. It was Annie's hiss of surprise that made Kitty look up, her arm still around Hattie's waist. A girl stood posed in the doorway of the baggage car. As they watched, she dropped the heavy shawl she wore around her to the floor. She was dressed beyond her age in an evening dress of mussed blue silk. The dress was cut low and her shoulders were nearly bare. An ornately wound and decorated _tignon_ was wrapped high around her head. Her eyes were full of cold fury.

Kitty took a step forward. She recognized those eyes. She recognized that pale face. She saw it in the mirror every morning. The men swung the girl to the platform as they had her mother, and steadied her for a moment. But she shook them both off. She reached up and pulled off the blue turban – dropping it as she had the shawl. She shook her head and a mass of red-brown hair, thick and wavy, fell around her.

Her dark blue eyes looked straight into Kitty's . "I will never wear that thing again, and no one can make me. Not my mother, and not my brothers, and not you, Kitty Russell."

Kitty turned first to Hattie, and then to her sons. Her rising anger was a fearful thing. She forgot that Matt stood behind her. That her friends circled close. That Critt and the conductor and half a dozen strangers stared at her. She forgot everything on earth but her hatred and her wrath. "I swear to God above I'll kill Wayne Russell dead."

Caleb shook his head sadly, his answer mild. "You cain't do that, Miss Kitty. He already daid."

"Then God damn his vile, despicable, lying soul to hell."

"Kitty!" It was Doc who protested.

She took a step forward, and then another. Her arms opened and she gathered in the stiff, furious child in front of her. She didn't say a word but the rigid shoulders relaxed and the girl's face burrowed into her neck. Tears finally replaced the vehement rage on which Carolina had lived for the last two weeks.


	9. Chapter 9

It was the unflappable Sam Noonan who broke up the tableau. "You folks hungry? I got breakfast started before I left the Long Branch and one of the girls is watching it now. Let's get over to the kitchen before you all freeze." He placed a gentle hand under Hattie's elbow and started her across the platform towards the street. His clear assumption that the rest of the family would follow proved true. Kitty moved forward with an arm still around Carolina, but Caleb came up to lay the dropped shawl around his sister's shoulders. "You go on with Mistah Critt, Miss Kitty. He got somethin' to tell you 'bout how things be. We talk to you after we eat some."

The colored family was shepherded off by Sam and Annie leaving Kitty forlorn and tearstained as the small train puffed its way out of the station towards Cimarron. Matt came up to take her arm, but it was Frank Reardon who suggested they head over to the Marshal's office. Critt bridled a little at that, but settled down under Frank's calm statement that there weren't many places in a town this size where a man could have a private conversation. Newly and Festus were dispatched summarily to make the morning rounds. Without comment, Doc trailed the party heading for the Marshal's office.

It didn't take long for the five of them to settle in what seats there were in the small office. Frank poured two mugs of coffee and handed them to Critt and Kitty. The other gentlemen helped themselves. The office had its effect on Matt. He was calm but very direct. "Tell us what happened, Critt. We don't know anything except what your sister wrote to us – and that wasn't very much. There's got to be more to the story."

Billy Critt took a long drink of his coffee before replying equally directly. "Wayne Russell took the girl for a 'walk' one afternoon about a month ago and sold her into a brothel called the Golden Lily." Matt's hand tightened on Kitty's shoulder, but neither of them commented. "I heard about it when my groom Caleb came to me and said his sister had been stolen away. I had seen Carolina just last summer, so I knew there was only one thing that could have happened. I was sorry, but I didn't think there was anything I could do. I told Caleb that. Thought he would accept it. It was bound to happen, and was just something her family would have to live with. But he was determined to do something about it. Next thing I knew, about a week later, I was walking along the street one night with a group of friends and there was my carriage, pulled up in an alley beside the Golden Lily. With my Caleb up on the box. It was pure chance. I saw a man and a woman come out the side door and get in the carriage, so I excused myself and just stepped in behind them. I opened the trap and told Caleb to take us to my sister's house." Critt shrugged. "Those boys had spirited Carolina away by telling her that her mother was ill. When she found out what was happening, she threw a fit. But by that time it was too late."

"Why was it too late?" Matt asked.

"Because Russell called me out in a restaurant the next morning. In front of several of my friends. When I wouldn't fight him, he pulled a gun and tried to shoot me." Billy turned to look at Kitty. "I'm sorry, Miss Kitty. These are not things a man wants a lady to hear, but I'm afraid there's no backing away from it. Russell's bullet burned my left leg and I fell back on the floor. I wasn't even wearing a gun. When he tried to shoot me again, my cousin Louie Dupre shot him dead. It was all horribly public and completely unavoidable."

Kitty's brows furrowed. "Why did he attack you, Billy? Was it about Carolina?"

"I'm afraid so, my dear. Someone had noticed my carriage. When the manager of the Lily accused Russell of reneging on his contract, well, that someone told him that I had been involved. Russell accused me of stealing his girl – that's how he put it "stealing his girl" – and demanded I return her to him. Naturally I told him I had no idea to what he was referring. He had been drinking, and I think likely he was frightened about what Gordon at the Lily might do to him if he didn't return the girl. Probably very justifiably frightened. Angus Gordon is not a gentleman. In any case, he forced the fight and got himself killed."

"Quite a sordid story, Mr. Critt," Doc commented from where he sat in the chair behind the desk. "And it left you in nasty fix."

"Yes, sir, it did." Billy replied. Doc's sarcasm soaring right over his head. "The Critts, and the Beauforts, and the Dupres have always been close. In the old days we traded our people and let them marry and kept the children between the families. I always abhorred separating families, even slave families. That's why I took Caleb on when he was about fifteen. He was horse mad, and my head groom trained him up. I've wanted Hattie to work for me since I married a few years ago, but she always turned me down. Said she liked having her own place, and I must admit it was a good one, even if it was in the colored quarter. Then last summer she came to me and said she'd leave and work for me if I took her daughter on as a maid or a nursery maid. That's when I met Carolina. I saw the resemblance at once, and I knew I couldn't have that girl in my house. She was too light. And too uppity, too. It wouldn't have worked at all."

Billy turned to speak directly to Kitty sitting across the table from him. "I should have written you then, Miss Kitty. Asking you to take the girl. You could have handled her here in the West, I suppose, but in New Orleans there was only ever one thing that would happen to girl that light and that pretty. I regret that I did not write the letter then, but I thought maybe there was time. She was only fourteen last summer." He repeated it again. "I thought there was time. And I didn't think any girl would be fool enough to go off with Wayne Russell."

Kitty's smile was bitter. "I was. Why should Carolina be different? Do you know what my father gave me for my fifteenth birthday, Billy? He had a man come and take me away from the woman I was stayin' with. He told me my father wanted me to come and live with him. I was thrilled. I felt like my father was rescuing me at last. The man drove me to a big, fancy house down in the Quarter. Same place he took Carolina. 'course it was quite a few years before I realized what had actually happened. I thought I'd been kidnapped, or that maybe my grandfather had finally decided to solve the problem of my existence. But it wasn't either of those things. It was Wayne Russell, and I'm glad he's dead. Now what are we going to do about that girl?"

Critt kept his eyes on the table. "I did hear that story. After I got back to New Orleans from my travels. I didn't believe it at first, but, well, at some point I realized it must be true. I never mentioned it to Lucy, Kitty. I swear to you I did not. By the time I got home, well, a few more things had happened and I realized that I owed you my life. I was an ignorant and arrogant boy, but not a stupid one. I pay my debts. But I'm afraid that Hattie and her family are in your hands now. I'm catching the afternoon train back to St. Louis. I've been away from my business and my family far too long."

He pushed back his chair as if to stand, but the Marshal laid a firm hand on his shoulder. "Got to be more to it than that, Critt. Your sister asked Kitty for a policeman. What's left that you aren't tellin' us?"

"I don't believe, sir, that we have been introduced," said Critt with a touch of his youthful conceit. "It was my understanding that Marshal Dillon was the law in this town, but I see that you are now wearing that badge."

"My name's Frank Reardon, Mr. Critt. I'm Marshal here in Dodge City. Marshal Dillon stepped down from the office when he married Miss Russell a while ago. So if there's trouble comin' then I'm the man who needs to know."

Critt did stand now, and shook the hand extended to him, and then reached his own to Matt. "I am delighted to hear that, Mr. Dillon! It pleases me to know that Miss Kitty is safely married." His pleasure was evident, but he seemed troubled as well. "It may make things awkward, though. I had hoped, well, hoped that Miss Kitty could take Carolina on in her establishment."

"I wouldn't do that, Billy," Kitty replied. She shook her head firmly. "Couldn't. First off, she's too young. And while this isn't New Orleans… the men here, well, they wouldn't accept a colored girl in a saloon. I'd have to be watching her day and night to keep her from being hurt. It just wouldn't work."

"She doesn't have to be colored any more, Kitty. She's octroon, maybe less. Here in the west she could certainly pass for white. And she favors you strongly. Anyone would see that and, well, treat her accordingly."

But Kitty shook her head again. "I can see you think that, Billy, but you're wrong. Too many people here saw her arrive. News will be all over town by now. And even if we'd somehow done it secretly, or if you'd had her in the train with you instead of in the baggage car, why would you think that would work?"

"Because it's what she wants, Miss Kitty. Only way we could get the girl to come with us without a fight."

Kitty's face went rigid, but she nodded her understanding. "I should have expected that. We'll deal with it. Now tell us why you expect trouble."

"Angus Gordon paid your father $500 for Carolina's contract. He didn't get it back from Russell, and he didn't get it back when he raided Hattie's business and her home. I _think_ we've come far enough away to discourage him, but the way we had to travel we wouldn't be hard to trace. He might send a man to follow her." He stopped, trying to find a way to put what he had to say into words a lady, even a lady who'd been a prostitute, could hear. "When old Michel Dupre ran the Golden Lily it was a brothel and a gambling house, yes, but it had class. Finest place in New Orleans. Known for honest play and honest value. It's changed since Gordon bought it. Gordon is a not a kindly man, maybe not an honest man, and he's certainly not a man who will let $500 walk off down the street without trying to get it back."

Frank did not seem impressed. "It's 1888, Mr. Critt. And this is Kansas. Matt and I will keep an eye out, but I doubt there will be any trouble."

"Could be, Frank," Kitty disagreed. "You don't know these people. It's not the $500 so much, although that too, it's the insult. And it's the money Carolina could bring in. You don't understand what it's like in one of those big houses. After a few months, well, she could bring him in that $500 in just a week. Trust me on this, Frank. I know."

Frank laid a hand softly on her cheek and then tipped her face up to look at him. "I'm not as innocent as I look, Kitty. I do understand what you're sayin', but I'll put my gun, and Matt's, against any gambler comin' up from the south, and figure to win." He ran a thumb over a cheek still damp with tears. "I think you've got the harder job, darlin', figuring out what to do with that girl."

Billy watched this with surprise, and some aversion. Dillon stood quietly with his arm around his wife's shoulder making no move to stop the other man from his quite intimate caress. He could not imagine allowing another man to touch his own wife in that fashion. Not even his own brother, or hers. He did not, could not, understand these people. Whatever Kitty had once been, it was gone. Lowering his eyes, he took a step towards the door.

Kitty reached out to snag his hand. "Look at me, Billy," she demanded, and when he did she met his eyes and held them. "You did the right thing. And I thank you for it. There's a lot of men down south who wouldn't have bothered. You give Lucy my love, Billy, and tell her I'll write her at Christmas and let her know how everything turns out."

Kitty stood, bringing all the men to their feet. "Doc, why don't you take Billy over to Delmonico's for some breakfast? I'm going to go back to the Long Branch and see Hattie. Matt, maybe you and Frank could pick up a few things for the boys. They're not dressed for a Kansas winter." She held out a hand to Critt, and gripped it hard when he took it. "Goodbye, Billy. I doubt I'll be seeing you again, but I pay my debts too. Just remember that." She was out of the door and down the boardwalk in a swirl of skirts that left them standing and gaping.

Doc set his hat firmly on his head. "Well, gentlemen, it looks like we've been given our marching orders. Mr. Critt, let's go get some breakfast."

9 - 9 - 9 - 9 - 9

Frank and Matt walked slowly over to Jonas' mercantile. The door was still locked, although they caught glimpses of Mr. Jonas bustling about inside. Frank settled himself on the hitching rail, and Matt leaned against the post beside him.

"You've always had an eye for a good horse, Matt."

"I like to think so."

"And now you breed them."

"I do."

"I keep thinkin' there must be more to the story than Wayne Russell takin' advantage of his wife's slave girl."

It was usually Frank who turned their conversation to the Bible, but Matt had been thinking hard on the matter since he first saw Carolina step off the train. "Rachel gave her slave Bilhah to Jacob that she might bear children in her name."

Frank nodded. "And Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham."

"I thought we were done with that twenty years ago, Frank."

"I don't think we'll be done in a hundred, Matt."

Jonas opened the door at that point and the two men went in. Matt thought about the day not that long ago when he had come to the store to buy a white man's clothes for Quint Asper to help the half breed live among his father's people. How similar would this be? And how would it work out?

Frank stacked work shirts, under things, and socks on the counter while Matt eyed a rack of sheepskin coats and did his best to match sizes. When Wilbur Jonas had figured up the total, Matt told him to put it on the account for the ranch and was surprised when Jonas hemmed and hawed and asked him for cash.

"I've had an account here for more than fifteen years, Mr. Jonas. And Kincaid has been doing business for longer than that. You have a problem with the way I pay my bills?"

"Can't say as I have, Mr. Dillon, but…" the man stared out the window and refused to meet Matt's eyes "I'm not so happy taking trade from a man who's doing his best to ruin my business."

"Ruin your business?"

"You loaned money to Polly Mason that's going to cut sharp into my dry goods trade. Banker Botkin wouldn't do it. He knew better. You can't expect to be welcome if you do a thing like that."

Matt stared at the man. He knew Kitty had made an arrangement with the dressmaker, but he hadn't asked for the details. When had he ever meddled in Kitty's business? He kept his voice sober. "Wrap that all up Mr. Jonas and put it on the Kincaid account. You'll be paid at the end of the month like always. If you decide you don't want our business just let me know the first of December and we'll move the Kincaid accounts to Jetmore. It's about the same distance. Wouldn't bother me at all to oblige.

It would bother him. Dodge City was his home. It was to stay close to Dodge that he and Kitty had settled at Kincaid rather than moving out to Colorado.

Less than an hour later the cavalcade was driving north towards the ranch, Kitty driving the wagon with Hattie sitting up beside her. Cairo and Caleb sat in the wagon bed with their sister between them. Matt rode slightly ahead. There were days, he knew, that seemed like they would change the world. This was surely one of them.


	10. Chapter 10

The ride out to Kincaid was cold. It seemed longer than usual. Conversation was stilted at best and mostly non-existent. Matt stayed just far enough ahead to make talk impossible. "That what they call a log cabin, Miss Kitty?" Hattie asked when Kitty finally drove the wagon through the gate and up towards the house.

Kitty glanced, startled, at the big log and frame house. What would she herself have thought of it if she hadn't traveled through half of Texas and most of Indian Territory before she arrived in Kansas? "No, Hattie, it's not. The older part, that might have been called a log house once, but not a cabin. And it's been built onto for quite a few years. Now, well, I'd just call it a ranch house, and a fine one at that. The ranch is called Kincaid after the last owner."

It started to snow, just a few soft flakes, as she pulled the wagon to a stop. Carolina jumped down and stood in the yard, her eyes wide and face turned up to the sky. Caleb handed down first Kitty and then his mother before stepping up to take the reins. "That you' carriage house, Miss Kitty?" he asked nodding at the big barn.

Kitty did laugh this time. "We don't have a carriage house, Caleb, or a carriage either. We keep a buggy in the barn, but the wagon usually sits there at the end where the roof hangs over. You follow Mr. Dillon on over. He'll show you where things go. And bring that trunk back with you, and the packages as well, if you would."

"Yes'm."

Kitty steered the other three towards the back porch, and pulled a key from her pocket to unlock the door. They shuffled somewhat stiffly into the big room, glad of the warmth after the cold drive. A pot of soup simmered at the back of the stove filling the room with a savory welcome. Kitty took charge.

"Now over through that doorway is Till's room. She worked for Mrs. Kincaid. I made up the bed and set things straight as soon as we heard you were coming." She walked over and opened the door, stepping in so that the others could follow her. It was a big square room that had been the kitchen of the original log house. A neat bed was covered with a plain but pretty blue and white quilt - work shirts, old overalls, and flower sacking sewed into a simple design. There was a low dresser with a jug and basin on top, and two rocking chairs in front of the fireplace. There was no wardrobe, but one corner was curtained off as a place to hang clothes. "I think this will be fine for you and Carolina, Hattie. That bed's plenty big." She took both of the older woman's hands and held her eyes. "This is your place and your home as long as you want it, Hattie. I told you a long time ago I'd send for you when I got married, and I never forgot that. Whatever else happens, this is yours."

Turning to Cairo she told him to go upstairs and take any empty room he wanted for himself and his brother.

He started to object but he was cut off by the sound of the back door as Matt and Caleb carried in the trunk that Annie had hustled down from the storeroom of the Long Branch. She had given Hattie and her daughter warm water and then found the girl a skirt and blouse that were both warmer and more appropriate to the prairie town. The stained blue silk was folded in on top of a variety of Kitty's clothes from a time when she was younger and more slender. There hadn't been anything available that would have fit the older woman so a wash, a clothes brush, and a warm shawl had been made to make do.

So there they all were at last – happy, relieved, awkward, and uncomfortable.

Matt broke the tension. "Soup smells mighty good, Kitty. When will lunch be ready?"

"About an hour. Why don't you take the boys out and show them the ranch?"

That left only the three women. Kitty took a deep breath. "Let's sit down and talk it over. I've got questions, and I bet you do, too."

Coffee settles a variety of ills, and Hattie took over the biscuit making as soon as she saw what Kitty was about. That left Kitty and Carolina sitting across the kitchen table studying each other, and allowed Hattie to answer questions while her hands were busy and her back was turned.

"I knew we were set for trouble, Miss Kitty, when Mr. Russell comed back to town last summer. He been gone for some long time. Years. Since Carolina was a little girl, but he showed up at our place one night and acted just like he was comin' home. I tried to get Carolina away to Miss Lucy's or Mr. Critt's but they wouldn't take her." Hattie shook her head and patted out her dough.

"I didn't want to go work for them, mamma. You know that." Carolina intervened.

"What did you want to do?" Kitty asked curious.

"I'm not sure. I liked serving in the restaurant, and meeting people. I like sewing, and I'm good at it. Miss Woodhouse, she wanted me to come to Boston and go to school. Be a schoolteacher someday. I liked the part about going to school, but not about teaching. Chalk and little children and caught up in one stuffy room all day. No thank you."

"Well, you surely seem to have gotten some education. Miss Woodhouse was a teacher?"

"Teacher at the Freedmen's School," Hattie answered proudly. "Cairo and Carolina both went there. They can read and write and do sums, the both of them."

The girl made a face. "They didn't want to take me in – that first day. Even with Cairo holding my hand and saying he was my brother. Miss Woodhouse thought I was white. That was the first time I realized anyone would think that."

"But not the last," sighed her mother.

Kitty sat quiet and let them squabble. It became quickly clear that talking to the two of them together wasn't going to be a worthwhile activity. Her eyes devoured her… sister? Half sister. While it was clearly true, those weren't words anyone in New Orleans would let out of their mouths. The resemblance was striking enough to be obvious to anyone who saw them both. Carolina's hair was darker, more auburn than true red, and not as smooth. But that could as easily be a lack of care and washing as a real difference in texture. The girl was much more slender, but then so had Kitty been twenty years before, and a hand shorter. Her eyes were the same deep blue and her skin a shade creamier than Kitty's milk white fairness. Kitty wondered if she freckled. She would have to ask, but not now.

Lunch wasn't as difficult as she imagined. Once convinced that they were all to sit down together at the big kitchen table, no one made a fuss, although it was Cairo who served out the dishes of soup and plated and served the biscuits before taking a chair near the stove. The men were more willing to talk than the women. Caleb, it seemed, didn't much care where he worked as long as he worked with horses. For the moment at least, he was perfectly willing to stay at Kincaid and help out however he could.

Cairo, nearly ten years younger, had different plans. "You all know about Nicodemus?" he asked directing the question to Matt.

"Pharisee who came in the night to hear Jesus preach because he was ashamed to be seen with him in the daytime," was Matt's prompt reply.

"You know your Bible, Mr. Dillion. That's just right. But I'm talking about the town of Nicodemus." He hesitated a moment. "Here in Kansas?"

Matt stopped eating to look at him and then nodded his head. "I do. You goin' there?"

"I am thinking about it, sir. Can you tell me what it's really like?"

Matt buttered a biscuit as he considered. "Depends on what you want to do. There's good farmland. There's city lots too, if you have money to buy one and start a business. I've only been there once. Picked up a thief they had arrested and took him to Hays for trial. I was made welcome, but…. it's an odd feeling for a white man. More like riding into an Indian camp than into a town."

"What is it, Matt? Some kind of Indian reservation?"

"No. It's a Negro town, Kitty. Up north of Hays between Stockton and Hill City. Four five hundred people. All black. Mostly freed slaves from Kentucky or Tennessee or up from the south. That were you want to settle, Cairo?"

"I want to go there, Mr. Dillon, and see what it is like. I have been thinking on it for more than a year now. Mamma and I, we ran a restaurant in New Orleans. Busy place. Good food and good business. But there we could only serve colored people. If I wanted to do more, make more money, I needed to go work in a white man's restaurant. I had offers, sir, but I chose not to take them. In Nicodemus, now…"

"You would still be cooking for a colored community, Cairo. It's just that would be the only community there is. You have money to start a business?"

Cairo looked at his mother. Hattie nodded. "We have money, sir. Enough to start. I took all of our money out of Mr. Critt's bank before we left New Orleans. And mamma dumped the cash from under the counter in her pockets when Mr. Dupre came to take her away. We lost a great deal, Mr. Dillon, but we have nearly $300 to start again."

Kitty looked at him in speculation, "You all want to go there?"

"I do not. I will not." Carolina spoke out in cool anger.

Hattie looked around the kitchen. "I would like to stay here, Miss Kitty. I'd like to stay here at least for a little while and not be afraid all the time."

"Part of the reason I want to go is to find a place where my sister can find a good man to marry. A black man. A place where she can be part of a free community of colored people."

"I will not go there, Cairo, and let you marry me to some old man who wants to show off a light-skinned wife. I won't go and you can't make me."

"We will see, little girl. We'll just see." Cairo stood and started collecting plates and bowls from the table. Hattie went to the sink and poured hot water from the kettle into the dishpan. Kitty made no move to stop them. Work, even if it was only doing dishes, was something that made them feel better about where they were.

10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10

It was a long, long, long afternoon. Kitty showed the women the house. Hattie's smile grew broader room by room. This was the kind of house she wanted for her lady. Carolina seemed most interested in the bathroom, but when Kitty offered her a bath, Hattie squelched the idea firmly. "We heat some water in our room tonight, Miss Kitty. We be fine."

Cookie sent Tony up from the cook house with two rabbits, still autumn fat, and Cairo took them out back to skin while Hattie worked her way through the pantry smelling and tasting as she assembled ingredients. Kitty would have made a stew, but the fricassee that Cairo presented them served with mashed and buttered potatoes and carrots glazed with honey pleased them all and left Matt assured that this man cooked a deal better than anyone in Dodge City.

The Dillons retired early. It seemed the only polite thing to do. Snow was falling heavily, and the kitchen and it's adjoining bedroom seemed to be the only place the Potters were comfortable. Matt turned from closing the door of their room to find Kitty wilting into his arms. He smoothed her hair and kissed her face gently before gathering her up to fill his lap in the big chair by the fire.

"You still happy about this, Kitty?" he asked.

"Happy? No. Satisfied? Very much. It's going to take some getting used to. And Carolina… that's going to be a problem."

They were silent for a long while. Matt stroked her hair and neck where she cuddled against him. After a time he spoke a little hesitantly, "Kitty?"

"Hmm?"

"I was upset this morning. When Frank… wiped away your tears."

Kitty resettled herself to look at him. "All these years, and now you're upset about Frank touching me? He didn't even kiss me." She gave him a stare. "And he usually does. Is this because we're married now?" Her question and her surprise were genuine.

"No. Not that. It's just…" Matt ran a hand lightly across her cheek. "I'm not jealous of Frank touching you. Comforting you. I'm just, well, disappointed that I didn't do it myself. I wanted to. But I didn't. I was glad he did, but, well, I suppose I feel like I need to learn to do things like that myself."

"Ahhh." It was a drawn out sound followed by enough silence to begin to be awkward. "Matt, you treat me different than Frank does. You make _me_ feel different. There's a part of Frank that always expects me to break down, to need to be taken care of. It's the way he is. It's the way he feels about women. You know how he was constantly protecting Maria. And touching – well, that's how he is same as it's how Annie is. It's just his way. Now you, on the other hand, you make me feel stronger than I really am because you expect me to be strong. I… I didn't behave very well this morning. I don't quite ever remember being that mad, and you know I get mad sometimes, Matt."

There was a chuckle then. "Yes, I do know that, Kitty."

"But you just stood there behind me. And you put your arm around my shoulders. Right there in front of everybody. And I felt I could be strong because you were strong. I felt like I could control my anger because you controlled yours." She pulled back a little to look at him. "You were angry, weren't you?"

"I was. For you. For Carolina. And for Hattie too. She must have suffered a great deal."

Kitty stood up and turned her back for Matt to unhook her dress. She began preparing for bed. "I've been thinking on it. Thinking all day. Carolina just turned fifteen. So she must have been born in seventy-five. He was out here in seventy-four. He must have headed right back to New Orleans, and to… to Hattie. Why would he do that, Matt?"

"You think he did it to get back at you? Maybe. You'll have to ask Hattie if you really want to know, but, Kitty… people don't talk about it much, but it wasn't… uncommon. Hattie belonged to your family. She clearly cared for your mother and for you. Do you think…"

"Do I think it had been going on for a long time? Do I think my mother knew? Do I think maybe she's my mother's sister the same way Carolina is mine? I don't know, Matt. Maybe I'll find out. Maybe I don't need to know. Maybe Hattie won't want me to." Kitty slipped a nightgown over her head and sat down to brush her hair. "You got a lot of clothes on, cowboy. You plannin' on stayin' up all night?"

Matt began pulling off his boots. "I could if you wanted me to. But it's an awful cold night. You might get chilled."

"I might at that," she said consideringly, "Maybe you could keep me warm?"

"Now there's a good idea."

10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10

Marshal Reardon was keeping a weather eye out for a stranger. So he was quietly aware when a well-dressed man stepped off the train a week or so before Thanksgiving and asked, in the accents of the deep south, for directions to a good hotel. What Frank didn't see, or didn't notice, was a down-at-the-heels older man, his face pale beneath the red of the cold, chaffing wind, who rode into town on a broken down nag. The second man, however, carried a gun, the first did not.


	11. Chapter 11

It was not the week that Kitty had thought it would be. She spoke to herself about it on that first morning. The things you imagined would happen never did come true, and she was a little old now to expect them to. She broke off that thought with a look around her room, and glance through the bathroom door where a very tall man stood shaving by the sink. Well, maybe there was a reason she had begun to look for fairytale endings. Wiping the smile from her lips she turned her mind from what she had foolishly expected – the Hattie of her childhood returned to care for her – and looked straight on at what she had received – a colored family that she hardly knew trying to wrangle a new life in a place where no one had any idea what to make of them.

Kitty was a little surprised when her first visitor that Friday was Annie Dillon. Fridays were a busy day at the Long Branch, but there was Annie driving up in a buggy while she and Hattie were still washing the breakfast dishes. Annie whirled in the back door to empty her arms of a stack of paper-wrapped bundles on the kitchen table so she could throw them around Kitty. "Dressmaking!" she declared, and began tearing open the paper to reveal a dress length of dark blue calico dotted with tiny white and pink flowers, and a bolt of soft cotton muslin that announced itself loudly but soundlessly as underclothes. Spools of matching thread and tiny dark buttons scattered themselves among the torn paper.

"I'll take care of your horse, miss." Caleb said quietly as he slipped out the back door, but he wasn't sure anyone heard him, and Cairo was right on his heels.

The long dining room table where Kitty had never served a meal was soon put to use for cutting fabric. By the time the men of her household peeked through the kitchen door, and then trudged down to the cookhouse for lunch, all four women were seated around the kitchen table basting seams in the bright light from the kitchen windows.

Annie left before three with an impatient twirl. "I can't stay, Kitty. You know that. Probably shouldn't have come, but I just had to be here. I can come back on Sunday."

"Sleep in, Annie. You know you'll need to," Kitty told her, but Annie just pursed her lips and shook her head before hugging not only her stepmother but Hattie and Carolina as well before she stepped out onto the back porch. Caleb helped her into the buggy and settled a fur rug around her. It wasn't snowing, but it was getting colder.

"She always like that, Miss Kitty?" Hattie asked as she returned to her seat at the table and picked up the sleeve she was gathering.

Kitty laughed. Annie had, as always, lifted her spirits. "She is." Turning to Carolina she told the girl that she didn't need to keep working on the dress, but could just as well get some of the clothes from Kitty's trunk that needed altering.

Carolina shook her head. "I can do this. I have plenty of clothes that don't fit too badly, Miss Kitty, and Mamma has nothing but what she is wearing. It was kind of Miss Annie to think of that right off."

Kitty wasn't sure it that was a cut at herself for not thinking of Hattie's state, or a compliment to Annie, but her attention turned when Hattie commented stolidly, "Ain't the first time I ever been turned away with just the clothes on my back, honey. I'll manage."

"When?" Kitty asked. She laid her sewing on the table and turned to stare at the older woman.

"Juneteenth." Hattie replied. She bit off a thread and then began pinning the gathered sleeve onto the bodice.

"Where were you, Hattie, when the war ended?"

"I was keepin' house for Mister Beaufort, Miss Kitty. Your grandfather. Me and Caleb, we was the only ones left out there. I cooked and cleaned and Caleb, he took care of the horses. Cairo, he was barely more than a baby."

"And my grandfather tossed you out? 

"Yes, ma'am, he did. I was washin' dishes in the kitchen and he called me out to the yard. I went. I remember I was wearin' an apron. I had a dishtowel in my hands, and Cairo clingin' to my skirt. He yelled for Caleb, and he came walking out from the stables. Neither of those boys had shoes on, Miss Kitty. Massa' pointed down the driveway towards the road and told us to get movin'. Said the Union soldiers done set us free and he wouldn't have us on his place another minute."

Kitty took her eyes off Hattie's face and picked up her sewing. "How did you feel about that, Hattie?"

"I was glad, an' I was scared. 'bout equal I guess. I started to head back for the house, to get my things, but Massa he just pushed me towards the drive. I asked, couldn't I get my clothes? 'an he said I was lucky to have what I was standin' up in. I wasn't goin' t'argue with him. I picked up Cairo and I put out a hand to Caleb…" Hattie smiled then, and shook her head. "Only time I ever knew my boy to backtalk a white person, Miss Kitty. He stood there and he scowled at Massa' Beaufort and he said he wasn' goin' nowhere. Said he didn' care what happened in the house but somebody had to be there to feed and care for those horses. That got him a lick across the face that sent him sprawlin' on the ground." Hattie shook her head at the memory. "That man began a'cussin' and a'cursin' like fury. Said no black boy was gonna tell him he couldn't take care of his own horses. He kicked Caleb somethin' fierce, and I done grabbed the boy and pulled him up and away. And down the road we went."

Carolina, who had clearly heard this story before, kept her eyes on her sewing, but raised her voice, "All the years you had worked for him, mamma, and he turned you off with nothing."

"We didn't work for him, child. We was owned by him. I had my own self for the first time in my life, and I wasn't about to turn back." This was clearly an old argument. Carolina's face was set and her lips pursed. Hattie sighed. "Sometimes I wish you understood, little girl. But no matter what I tell you, you don't. Then sometimes I'm glad you don't have to." She turned to Kitty, "What we gonna fix those men for dinner, Miss Kitty? I better be startin' on that."

As soon as the women started clearing up their dressmaking, Cairo slipped in from the chill back porch and started in to cook. Hattie fell smoothly to helping him, but there was no place for the other two. Carolina tried to retire to Hattie's bedroom but Kitty drew her into the big living room with it's two fireplaces, and they sat up close to the front windows using the late afternoon sunshine for their stitching.

It was natural for Kitty to start off conversation with a compliment. "You sew as well as you speak, Carolina. Where'd you learn?"

Carolina gave her a smile. There hadn't been many of those. "I learned to speak at school, Miss Kitty. Cairo did as well, but he did not put as much effort into it as I did. Miss Woodhouse, our teacher, she came from Boston and she gave us elocution lessons. She told us if we learned to speak correctly that people would treat us with respect." She raised her eyes from her sewing to meet Kitty's. "It was not true, of course. It is impossible for a white person to respect a Negro. Most of the children did not have an interest in learning to speak, but I did. Miss Woodhouse gave me special time after school. I read poetry and read aloud from the Bible. The other students scoffed at me, but I did learn."

"Yes. You certainly did. Why?"

Her eyes back on the tiny double seam she was taking in the bodice, Carolina answered coolly, "Even then I was planning on getting away. Not speaking like a colored girl was one of the first steps."

That opened a vista of other questions, but before Kitty could ask a one, Festus was coming in the front door with barely a knock. She had been pretty sure they would see him today, and pretty sure it would be in time for a meal, but the interruption was not timely. Kitty put aside her sewing and rose with her face set in a smile to greet him warmly.

Dinner that night was a little more relaxed than the night before. Festus tucked into Cairo's elegant meal with gusto and plenty of praise. Both Matt and Kitty had been raised in the south. There were things you said, and things you didn't say, to colored people. Festus, from the back hill country of Missouri, knew no such social niceties. His conversation was frank and his questions overly personal. Somehow, though, all of the family except Carolina warmed to him quickly and answered his queries with more information than either Matt or Kitty had been able to extract from them.

Caleb seemed particularly interested in Ruth, and asked Festus several times where a mule might be available in the Dodge area. While that led to a number of long stories, and an offer to introduce Cairo to several locals who might have a mule for sale, it also led to the question of why Cairo wanted one. "You're a'livin' on the best horse ranch in Ford county, Cairo. Now why do you be wantin' a mule? You need to go somewhere, why Matthew here will loan you a horse."

Cairo shook his head to that. "A black man can't just be seen driving a horse, not a good horse like the ones here, Mr. Festus. I'd get picked up by the law sure as sure, and probably go to jail for horse stealing. Or end up hanging from a tree."

Festus turned to Dillon at that. "Now, Matthew, you go on an' tell him things don't work like that up here in Kansas."

But Matt did not. "He could ride one of my horses in to town, or drive a wagon. Most of Dodge likely knows his family is out here with us now. But he wants to drive up north of Hays to Nicodemus, and sorry as I am to admit it, he's right. A local law man might well pick him up, or someone not the law who didn't like to see him with a good horse, or someone who wanted the horse and didn't mind killing a colored man for it."

"Well, that's not right, Matthew. What we gonna do about that?"

"I don't know, Festus. You going to loan him Ruth? I can mount you while he's gone."

"Naw, I ain't gonna do that." Festus turned back to Cairo and slapped him on the shoulder. "I'll just go on up there with ya. Ruth don't mind pullin' a wagon, and Matthew will loan us a buckboard. We'll just start off tomarra' mornin' and head on up to that black town you been talkin' about." This matter settled Festus returned to his enjoyment of cobbler Hattie had concocted from canned peaches and wide strips of sweet, browned dough.

"Will you come with us, Caleb?" Cairo asked his older brother.

But Caleb shook his head. "Not this time. I stay here with Mamma and Carolina. Jus' in case anythin' happens." He turned to address Matt. "And Mr. Dillon I'd be grateful if you'd come out t' the stables after dinner. I put that little grey mare in a stall this afternoon. Doan like what I see. I think maybe she drop that foal early. Maybe too early to live."

And that broke up the meal at once as the two horsemen headed out for the barn. Hattie started collecting dishes to wash, and Festus sat at the table telling tales and feeding himself what was left of the cobbler straight from the pan.

Matt and Kitty retired to their room with some relief a little later. Festus, as usual when he stayed with them, slept in the bunkhouse, and Caleb slept in the barn with the young mare.

It was cold, and Matt wore one of the long-tailed night shirts that Kitty had made him. It still seemed odd to him to wear nightclothes to bed. Most of his life he'd either slept in his clothes, or his underclothes, or in nothing at all when he came to Kitty's bed. But he certainly wasn't going to snuggle up to her wearing flannel drawers and a sweaty undershirt – even if they weren't as tattered as they had been in earlier years. He made up the fire in their small fireplace, blew out the light, and tucked himself in beside his wife.

"You know Caleb and Cairo have been sleeping on the floor in Hattie's room?" he asked, pulling her closer and warming his cold hands against her bottom.

"Yes. I told them to take any room they wanted up here, but they didn't. Thought they might go down to the bunk house, but they didn't do that either."

Matt sighed. "I don't think they'd be welcome in the bunk house. Most of our men were hired by Jake, and they're southerners – or were. Two or three fought for the Confederacy."

"Bat?" she asked him, naming their foreman.

"No. He's from Missouri, and he spent the war here at Kincaid with Jake. He was pretty young then. Just a little older than Jake's boys."

That drew a sigh from Kitty. There was a stone on the low hill above the ranch house in memory of two brothers, killed in the same battle, but fighting on different sides. "Would Bat object, do you think? If you sent them out to the bunkhouse to sleep."

Matt gave that some thought. "No. But he wouldn't want to force his men to share space with them. It wouldn't work well. Either Tobe would quit, or I'd have to fire him. Better to leave things as they are."

They were both warm by now, and beginning to be aroused. "I'm sorry you got shut out of the house all day," Kitty told him, nibbling his neck.

"I had plenty to do," Matt said, beginning to lever her flannel nightgown up over her hips. "And it let me take Caleb and Cairo down to the cookhouse and see how that went."

He shivered as she licked his ear and then sucked lightly on the lobe. "How did that go?"

His fingers were busy with the buttons at the front of her gown as he replied, "About what I expected." And then his mouth was busy too and there was no more time for talk.


	12. Chapter 12

By morning the snow was over and with one of the quick turns of weather for which Kansas is famous, a bright sun and a warm wind were already melting off the previous day's accumulation. Cairo and Festus left soon after breakfast, the Potter family fortune hidden at the bottom of a can of axle grease tucked up under the seat of the buckboard. Caleb did not turn out to see them leave.

Kitty went out to the barn mid-morning and found both her husband and her childhood friend standing in worried silence over a small dappled-grey mare with blood dripping down her back legs. Kitty went to stand by the mare's head and stroked her soothingly. "We going to lose this one?" she asked.

"Maybe," her husband replied.

"I doan think so, Miss Kitty. It's early. But I think maybe I pull it through. I done this before."

Kitty returned to the kitchen where Hattie and Carolina were sewing and cracked several eggs into a bowl. She measured in a few spoons of oil. "Come on upstairs with me, Carolina. I want to do something about your hair." The girl looked at her mother, but Hattie just kept sewing steadily putting the last seams into a dress that was almost ready to wear. Kitty took her arm and they went upstairs to the bathroom. There was water steaming in a bucket on the small stove next to the door, and Kitty ran water into the tub. Carolina bent over to feel it and was surprised to find it no colder than the room.

"There's a reservoir in the kitchen," Kitty said. "So it stays pretty warm." She poured the bucket of heated water in with the water running from the tap. "You get in the tub and I'll get this ready for your hair." She spent another minute or two on her mixture and then tucked a towel over the front of her dress and turned around. Carolina, looking pleased, was already sitting in the tub with her hair wet.

"Did they show you how to wash your hair at the Lily, Carolina?"

"No, ma'am. But they had a big tub like this, and first thing I did when I got there was have a bath."

Kitty knew what had happened after the bath, but she didn't know yet whether Carolina felt read to talk about that. She rubbed the egg mixture into the girl's hair, separating it strand by strand and working it in. "I'm a little surprised. When I was there they started me right off with how to keep my hair thick and shiny."

"You are a white woman, Miss Kitty. You show your hair. I have never been able to show my hair since I was a little girl and my mamma did it up in short braids all over my head. From the time I was ten I had to wear a tignon."

Kitty just kept rubbing and kneading in the gooey concoction. "Well, you're not going to do that anymore are you, Carolina? So I guess you need to know how to care for your hair and how to put it up."

Kitty rinsed her hair with pitchers of water, and when it was clean she did one final rinse with another pitcher of cold, chamomile tea that she had prepared the night before. Carolina dried herself, enjoying the thick cloth towel, and then Kitty wrapped her in one of her own robes – a fancy blue silk one with wide ruffles – and the two of them sat in front of the stove combing out her hair to dry.

"Did you know what was coming, Carolina? When you went to the Lily?"

"Yes, ma'am. Colored girls are not innocent of such things." Carolina turned to look at her. "Did you know, Miss Kitty? When he took you there?"

Kitty nodded. She'd lived in a gambling house that was not precisely a brothel for several years. Panacea had kept men away from her, but hadn't attempted to keep her apart from the talk of working girls with whom she lived. "But you see, Carolina, my father didn't take me to the Golden Lily. I had never even met him – at least that I could remember. He just sent a carriage, and a note for the lady who was taking care of me, and off I went. Oh, I knew pretty quick what was happening, but I didn't think it was my father who had done it." She made a small chortling noise that showed very little humor. "I thought for years that my father would find out and come rescue me."

"Did you need to be rescued, Miss Kitty?" she asked hesitantly after a few moments of silence. "Did you not like it there?"

Kitty sat back in her chair and handed the comb to the girl who was, by some remarkable circumstance not only her sister but the only person she now knew who had shared her own early experience. "You keep on combing. Let me think a minute." Eventually, she went on. "Oh, I liked it fine. At first. They work mighty hard to be sure the girls do like it. I learned a lot. Not just about men, but about cards, and gambling, and the good things in life. I liked the clothes, and the rooms, and the furniture. And the food. I surely did like the food. But I did not like not havin' a choice about who I slept with or what we did. Still, I can't say I wouldn't have stayed if they had paid me. But they didn't."

Carolina stopped so suddenly Kitty thought she was going to drop the comb. She had caught the girl's full attention at last. "They did not pay you?"

"No, Carolina. They did not. At first it didn't matter, and by the time it did matter, there didn't seem to be anything I could do. They showed me a contract – not that I ever signed one, or that it would have been valid if I had – that said I wouldn't be paid until I was twenty-one years old. I was an apprentice. My wages were my clothes and room and board. Do you think it would have been any different for you?"

Carolina sat facing her now. Her eyes were wide with distress. "Yes, ma'am, I did. I still do. That's why I didn't want Caleb to take me away. I thought I could make more money there than doing anything else in New Orleans. And Michael…"

"Michael?"

"Michael O'Rourke. He worked there. He showed me how to… do things with men." Carolina's stubborn face stared boldly at Kitty. "And how to enjoy myself while I did it. Michael said he remembered you. That you were one of the best paid girls they had. That is just what he told me. That you were one of the best paid girls and that I could be too."

Kitty stepped behind her and took the comb from her hand. "Well, I do remember little Mikey O'Rourke. He was an errand boy around the place when I was there. Several years younger than I was. But I would certainly remember if I was ever paid, Carolina, and I was not. Now, you're about dry here. You need to remember to brush your hair one hundred strokes every morning and every night. You can braid it at night, but you need to learn to put it up during the day. Only children wear their hair down, and you are far from a child. Come on over to the mirror. I have some hairpins and I'll show you how to do it so it stays up firm. We'll try something easy first."

But Carolina wasn't done yet. "You think Michael was lying to me, Miss Kitty?"

"Yes, Carolina. I do."

There were tears rising in the liquid blue eyes, but Carolina dashed they aside. "You are not just telling me this because you want to discourage me from being a prostitute?"

Kitty's lips lifted a little at the formal phrasing, but she shook her head. "I am not. If that's what you really want in life, Carolina, I'll help you find a place where you can do it without being owned, but I'm hoping you can learn to want something else."

Carolina held her determined little mouth grimly straight. "I will have to think on this. Michael… I knew better than to love him, Miss Kitty, but still… he was the first white person who ever let me call him by his name. He was important to me."

Kitty put a hand under her chin to tip the familiar face up to look at her. "Well, we can fix that by you callin' me Kitty. And I will do everything I can to help you have the kind of life you want - if you can figure out what that is."

"Why would you do that, ma'am? You don't even know me."

"Well, first because, although we aren't supposed to talk about it, you _are_ my sister. And then, well, I suppose because I wish there had been someone to help me out when I left the Golden Lily. There wasn't, and I had some hard years. I would like to spare you that."

Carolina looked at her intently for a full minute and then went over to the mirror. "Can you show me how to put it up like yours?"

12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12

Kitty spent the early afternoon partly in the barn watching as Matt and Caleb helped a weak and tiny white foal from its mother's body and then held it up to nurse. Partly she moved about the yard gathering eggs, sweeping the wide porch, and keeping watch down the road to Dodge. It was nearly two o'clock when the sound of wheels alerted her and she grabbed Matt's hand to draw him out to the front of the house. They were both there to meet Doc's buggy when it pulled up to the front porch.

"I was pretty sure you would be here today, Doc," Kitty greeted him. "I was a little surprised that you didn't show up yesterday."

Doc tied his horse to the hitching post. "I would have been, but we had a spot of trouble in town."

"Oh? What happened?" Matt asked.

"Nothing too serious." Doc took a swipe at his moustache. "Fella over at the Lady Gay seemed to think he could fly and was intent on proving it. Took me most of the day to get things fixed up." He headed up the stairs to the porch. "Now I'm here to take a look at Carolina."

Kitty stood herself in front of the door. "No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean it's not going to happen, Doc, so let's just agree to that. Then you can come round to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee and a nice visit."

"Kitty, that's just not sensible. I need to check her out…"

"No, you don't." Kitty interrupted him. "If it makes you feel any better I had her in that big tub upstairs this morning and I can tell you she's not injured in any way."

"You trying to tell me she spent ten days at that brothel and nobody touched her?"

"No, I'm not. I'm trying to tell you she hasn't been raped or abused."

Matt stepped in at that point. "Have a seat here, Doc, and let's have a word about this."

The doctor let himself be seated in Kitty's rocker and she sat beside him on a bench. Matt leaned his tall form against one of the doorposts. "I guess you figured Doc would be out here soon as he could didn't you, Kitty?"

"I did. But he's looking for a problem that's not there. And I'm not going to let him disturb Carolina any more than she already is."

"Well, what is it that makes you so sure she hasn't been… injured?"

"Two things. First, she told me. And second, I took a good look at her this morning. I've been around working girls for a long time, Matt, and she's just fine."

Doc was trying to be patient but was clearly getting angry. "Kitty, you're an experienced woman, but you're not a doctor. Now I need to examine that young lady."

Kitty sighed loudly then drew in a long breath. "Well, Doctor Adams, if you know so much, then you tell me what you think happened to her."

Doc's familiar dry voice replied evenly. "I think she was raped. She may not have been beaten, if she didn't fight them, but she was certainly abused."

Kitty considered that a moment. "So every time we have a wedding in Dodge City you go barging in to check out the bride?

"That's a different think entirely, Kitty, and you know it."

"Well, thinking about how little sense some of our young men have, I'm not entirely sure that's true. But you are wrong about Carolina. She went willingly into that house. She knew what was going to happen. I'm not entirely sure she was a virgin, but I suppose she might have been. I was. But she wasn't raped. That's not how a place like that works. It's not the start you want for a woman that you're investing a site of money in. She was seduced. By someone with a lot of experience with women. Someone who made her feel mighty pleased with herself."

"Kitty, you don't know what you're talking about."

But at that point Matt stepped in. "Doc, hold on there. Looks to me like maybe Kitty is the only one here who does know what happened. Why don't you tell us, honey."

The smile his wife gave him paled the winter sun. "I don't know how to make you understand. Let's try it this way. The first time you had a woman, what was the very next thing you wanted to do?" Kitty ignored Doc and directed this at her husband.

Matt's face reddened a little but he came up with the answer she knew he would. "To do it again."

"Is it so hard for you men to believe that a woman would feel the same way?"

Doc rose and started down the stairs. "Guess I'll head back to town." But Kitty caught his hand. "I wish you'd stay, Doc. Come have some coffee. And I baked a pie for lunch. And Doc," He looked up at her standing above him on the porch, "I do want you to take a look at Hattie. She doesn't seem well to me."

Matt opened the front door and the three of them went in.

12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12

Later that evening, with Doc already settled up in his room, and with Matt making the final rounds of the ranch without which he did not seem able to sleep, Kitty wrapped herself in a shawl and slipped out to the barn. Caleb was on his knees in the straw holding the little body of the foal up to suckle. He smiled at her. "That baby going to live, Caleb?" she asked.

"I think so, Miss Kitty. He's just kind of weak, and his bones aren't quite set yet. Every day we keep him alive he'll get stronger."

Kitty watched in silence for a while. "You want to stay here with us, Caleb?"

He kept his attention focused on the little horse, but he answered her readily enough. "Yes, ma'am. I do."

"Even if you have to sleep in the barn?"

"I've slept in barns most of my life, Miss Kitty, but I gots an idea about that. When Mr. Dillon was showin' us around yesterday, I saw this little house down by the creek most hidden by those cottonwoods. They usin' it for hay right now, but it's built tight. It's just one room, but it's all I need, ma'am. I could move that hay and fix things up with no trouble at all. You think Mr. Dillon might let me do that?"

Kitty had to think a minute to realize what he meant. It was the old foreman's house. It was the place where Rose Kincaid had wanted her to live when they'd first made their bargain about Jake fifteen years before. She smiled with great satisfaction. "Yes, Caleb, I'm pretty sure Mr. Dillon would agree to that. I'll ask him tonight."

Caleb turned his warm brown eyes up to her, "Thank you, Miss Kitty. That would be jus' fine. I ain't never had a place all my own. Not in my entire life."


End file.
